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CDPmiGHT DEPOSfT. 



THE ESSENTIALS OF 
AN ENDURING VICTORY 



WORKS OF 
ANDRE CHERADAME 



THE ESSENTIALS OF AN ENDURING VICTORY 
THE PANGERMAN PLOT UNMASKED 
THE UNITED STATES AND PANGERMANIA 



L'EUROPE ET LA QUESTION D'AUTRICHE AU 
SEUIL DU XXE SIECLE [1901J 

(Czech and Russian translations) 

L'ALLEMAGNE, LA FRANCE ET LA QUESTION 
D'AUTRICHE [1902] 

(An abridgment of the preceding) 

LA MACEDOINE, LE CHEMIN DE FER DE BAG- 
DAD [1903] 

LA COLONISATION ET LES COLONIES ALLE- 

MANDES [1905] 

LE MONDE ET LA GUERRE RUSSO-JAPONAISE 
[1906] 

LA CRISE FRANCAISE [1912] 

DOUZE ANS DE PROPAGANDE EN FAVEUR DES 
PEUPLES BALKANIQUES [1913] 

LA PAIX QUE VOUDRAIT L'ALLEMAGNE, 191S 

[191s] 

(Pamphlet) 

LE PLAN PANGERMANISTE DEMASQUE [1916] 
(English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Russian, 
and Japanese translations) 

PAN-GERMANY, THE DISEASE AND THE CURE, 
AND A PLAN FOR THE ALLIES [1918] 

LES BENEFICES DE GUERRE DE L'ALLEMAGNE 
ET LA FORMULE BOCHE " NI ANNEXIONS, 
NI INDEMNITES" [1918] 
(Pamphlet) 



THE ESSENTIALS OF 
AN ENDURING VICTORY 



BY 
ANDRE CHERADAME 

AUTHOR OF "the FANGEBMAN PLOT UNMASKED ' 



WITH MAPS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1918 



-^ 






Copyright, 1918, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published December, 1918 




DEC 12 1918 



©CI.A508533 



PREFACE 

A considerable number of the Allies believe 
that the conclusion of the armistice with Ger- 
many on November 10th, 1918, signified that 
all was over, that we were assured of abso- 
lute victory, and that the general demobiliza- 
tion could be immediately begun. 

As this is an erronous belief, it constitutes 
a source of immense danger. 

The object of this book is to show this 
danger in the strongest light, and to convince 
public opinion that it is urgently necessary to 
guard against it without delay. I shall show 
that our victory may be very seriously com- 
promised during the armistice preceding 
peace. 

Many of my readers may possibly be sur- 
prised by this statement, especially those 
who as yet know nothing of me; and for this 
reason I must first explain why I am partic- 
ularly entitled to be heard by the general 
public at this crucial moment of the world's 
history. 

During a period of twenty years before 



VI PREFACE 

1914, I devoted all my time and all my means 
to the defense of peace. In order to avoid 
entirely the horrors of this war, I had care- 
fully studied the conditions which would cause 
it with the view of showing how it could best 
be prevented. 

Events have shown that the measures I ad- 
vanced in my books, published from 1901 to 
1914, to prevent the German aggression, were 
right. If, therefore, these measures had been 
followed, this horrible war would never have 
taken place, and millions of men would still 
be living. These things justify me in thinking 
that I can give some information that will 
be especially useful to prevent a recurrence of 
the war. 

There are other reasons why confidence 
may be accorded me: 

The two maps given on pages viii and ix 
demonstrate that already in 1901 I had clearly 
explained in what the Pangerman plan con- 
sisted, exactly as it was realized sixteen years 
later, in 1917. 

In 1912, I declared that the European war 
would begin by an attack on Serbia (see La 
Defense Nationale, November 30th, 1912), that 
the German offensive against France which 
would follow would be ''terrific in its na- 



PREFACE vii 

ture," and "pushed to the verge of frenzy" 
(see La Grise frangaise, page 507) . 

As the result of four months' investigation 
in the Balkans at the beginning of 1914, I 
published in the Paris Correspondant (June, 
1914) indications which showed that the gov- 
ernment of Vienna ''was about to set off an 
explosion which should destroy the state of 
things beginning to take shape in the Bal- 
kans." In August, 1914, I pointed out that 
Bulgaria would declare war against the Allies 
as soon as they met with a military defeat, 
which came to pass after the affair in the 
Dardanelles. 

In my book. The Pangerman Plot Unmasked, 
published at the beginning of 1916 (see page 
73), I denounced in advance the series of Ger- 
man pacifist manoeuvres, including the one 
now in progress — the armistice trick, based 
on the evacuation of Belgium and France, 
to be followed by a negotiated peace which 
finally, in spite of first appearances, would 
result in a German victory. 

This peril still exists in a much greater de- 
gree than is believed, but we can completely 
avert it if the Allies take advantage of the 
tremendous effect produced by the defeat of 
Bulgaria and the revolt of the oppressed 



Vlll 



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PREFACE 



IX 




X PREFACE 

peoples in Austria-Hungary, who have opened 
to the AUies a free, triumphal road from Bel- 
grade or Fiume to northern Bohemia; that 
is, to a point only 250 kilometres south of 
Berlin. These events, which in the single 
month of October, 1918, completely trans- 
formed the general situation of the Allies, 
grew out of the application of a political 
strategy on the principles and methods of 
which I have not ceased to point out from 
the beginning of the war. See U Illustration^ 
January 2d, 1915; "How to Destroy Panger- 
many," Atlantic Monthly, December, 1917; 
Pangermany, the Disease and Cure, and a Plan 
for the Allies. On page 211 of this book, pub- 
lished by the Atlantic Monthly early in 1918, 
will be found a formula summarizing the con- 
ditions of victory, which, as events have since 
shown, were amply carried out by the Allies 
in September-October, 1918. 

On page 212 of the same book, I said once 
more: ''In reality it is enough that the Austro- 
German communications should be seriously 
disturbed for the situation to become, with 
extraordinary swiftness, very difficult both 
morally and materially for the armies con- 
centrated on the western front by the Ger- 
man Staff." 



PREFACE xi 

I said at the end of this book: "If we en- 
courage the Slavs, we shall inevitably bring 
about an internal explosion in Pangermany, 
and before the close of 1918 complete victory 
will be ours." 

A long series of events sustain my predic- 
tions. Not that I am at all a prophet; I am 
only what may be called a good mechanic- 
engineer who has studied the very complicated 
European machine long and deeply, and, as is 
only natural under such circumstances, I can 
see much farther into the future than those 
who have not undergone the same special 
training. 

The service which I may now be able to 
render lies in pointing out to the general public 
the great dangers of the period of armistice, 
and the way to avert them. 

We must first understand that the armistice 
signed by Germany is not identical with an 
unconditional surrender. This agreement gives 
strong guarantees to the Allies, no doubt, but 
none the less it limits their action, as they 
are not allowed to occupy the whole territory 
of Germany. The German army is not de- 
mobilized, it is simply to withdraw beyond a 



xii PREFACE 

definite zone, and a portion of its material 
is still in its possession. 

The armistice is therefore an agreement 
which assumes, on the one hand, that the Ger- 
mans will keep their word, and, on the other, 
that the Allies will know how to draw the 
most advantages from the securities which 
have been given them. 

The application of the principle of repara- 
tion for damage caused is in particular re- 
markably elastic. It may be applied in a way 
so inadequate that — as I shall show later on — 
the final result would be that France would 
in reality completely lose the war — a result 
which would have as its consequence the de- 
feat of all the AUies. 

The armistice is, then, a convention, that is, 
a paper, worth just as much as its applica- 
tion; and while the armistice is in force the 
Germans and those who take their part in 
the different Allied countries will surely at- 
tempt — 

1st. To increase the enormous lessening of 
morale which the conclusion of the armistice 
has brought about among the Allied troops 
by making them think that there can be imme- 
diate demobilization. 

2d. To modify the conditions of the armi- 
stice or to secure their incomplete execution. 



PREFACE xiii 

3d. To stir up rivalries which may naturally 
exist between the greater Allies and between 
the peoples to be set free by the Entente in 
central and eastern Europe, but which have 
hitherto been held in check by the restraints 
of the war. 

4th. By means of this situation to reach 
a negotiated peace. 

5th. To obtain much more favorable con- 
ditions of peace, on the plea that the Ger- 
mans are now republicans. 

When one is familiar with the persistency 
and power of German propaganda it is clear 
that if these modes of action are systematically 
applied for several months, at the peace the 
Allied victory will be shorn of much of its 
greatness. 

I state below certain things which have 
taken place or became known in the space 
of only seventy-two hours before or after the 
signature of the armistice by Germany, 
November 10th, 1918. 

The Evening Post of November 11th an- 
nounces that the delegates from the Central 
Powers will have preparatory conferences with 
the envoys of the Allies. A negotiated peace 
in conformity with Boche ideas is, then, in 
preparation, which is contrary to the wish 
of the immense majority of the American 



xiv PREFACE 

public, which has clearly pronounced in favor 
of a dictated peace. 

In New York, on the 10th of November, 
4,000 socialists held a meeting at the Star 
Casino to protest against the occupation of 
German fortresses by the Allies {New York 
Tribune, November 11th, 1918). 

Even before the armistice had been signed, 
on November 8th, Lord Robert Cecil, British 
Under-Secretary of State, said: ''A genuine 
democratic German government assuredly 
would be accorded better peace terms." 

On November 11th, Doctor Solf, German 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, begs President 
Wilson to persuade the Allies to "mitigate 
the fearful conditions of the armistice." 

However this may be, if these facts and 
this information can be known in three days, 
what will be the effect of events of the same 
sort which cannot fail to increase from now 
to the conclusion of peace ? It is certain that 
these results would have the effect of making 
the victory of the Allies ''evaporate" to a con- 
siderable extent. 

This will be better understood if we analyze 
the constituents of victory, understanding 
clearly what "virtual" victory means, and 
what are the conditions to transform it into 
"real" victory. 



PREFACE XV 

The reason which decided Germany to sign 
the armistice hes in the fact that the AUies, 
having ''virtually" mastered the right to 
pass through Austria-Hungary, could attack 
Germany on the south. Under these condi- 
tions, being no longer able to prevent a mili- 
tary defeat on her own soil, Germany had 
no interest in the continuance of the struggle. 
It is therefore a ''virtual" threat of the Allies 
that has brought about for them a victory 
which, before the realization of the armistice 
and of the conditions of peace, is also in a 
virtual state. 

The greater number of the Allies believe 
that the armistice signed by Germany, being 
a written acknowledgment of defeat accepted 
in her name, constitutes victory for the Allies; 
but this is not true. The armistice in itself 
is only one of the probabilities of victory, 
since it is worth no more than the application 
which is made of its terms and the force which 
the Allies can derive from this application 
in imposing conditions of peace which assure 
them a truly lasting and curative victory. 
It is of cardinal importance to remember that 
after four years of an extremely complex 
struggle, which has overturned Europe in a 
manner unprecedented in history, real victory 
will not result from the signature of a document^ 



XVI PREFACE 

or even from the recovery of territory once lost, 
like Alsace-Lorraine for France, but from a differ- 
ence in the whole situation of the victor by com- 
parison with that of the vanquished. 

Two contestants enter a contest, each with 
100; when accounts are settled one is found 
to have 60, the other 80; the latter is clearly 
the winner. But what may possibly give rise 
to serious and even fatal mistakes is the fact 
that the difiference in the final state of the 
two antagonists in this war, resulting from 
the siun of various factors and from accounts 
long and very difficult to draw up, will show 
themselves only when months or even years 
have elapsed after the conclusion of peace. 

This is the reason why it is absolutely neces- 
sary to insure ourselves against any risk of 
error, by means of the most extreme caution 
in strictly applying the conditions of the armi- 
stice, and in definitely imposing conditions 
of peace which have been studied out with 
the greatest technical care. 



As an illustration, let us take the example 
of France to show the imperative nature of 
these necessities. The permanent character 
of the victory of France is unquestionably 



PREFACE xvu 

the very condition of the real and definitive 
victory of the AUies. It is certain, for instance, 
that if, twenty years after the conclusion of 
peace, France should succumb as a result of 
the remote consequences of the war, Germany 
would rule Europe. It would thus be shown 
that the AlHes would have been completely 
deceived in declaring, as many of them are 
doing at this moment, that they were certain 
of having brought off a final victory. 

France, being the pivot of the coalition which 
has just imposed conditions for an armistice 
on Germany, is consequently victorious; but 
for the present only in the virtual and con- 
ditional sense, even after the occupation of 
Alsace-Lorraine. Undoubtedly, it is in many 
respects a great advantage for France to re- 
gain her lost provinces. But, in the first place, 
France is only doing this after she has been 
deprived of them for forty-seven years, and, 
secondly, the advantage resulting from this 
restoration will only be a real one for France 
if the "peace conditions are such that she can 
keep Alsace-Lorraine permanently. 

On the signature of the armistice securing 
to France the occupation of the lost provinces 
France has not the certainty of being able 
to keep them permanently, because of the 



xviii PREFACE 

conditions brought about by the war, first, 
in their population, and, secondly, in their 
finances, conditions which at the moment of the 
signature of the armistice^ in spite of appear- 
ances, put France in a clearly unfavorable 
situation with respect to Germany. 
• Everything is a question of comparison. 
The Americans are 100 millions, and their 
war losses (about 55,000 dead and 180,000 
wounded) are very rightly felt by them. 
But the harm done by the war to the French 
people assumes proportions infinitely more con- 
siderable. 

It is a tremendous fact which should be kept 
in mind by all those who wish to guarantee the 
immediate future of Europe and of peace that 
France has lost more men than Germany, not 
only in proportion to the population of the 
two countries but actually in absolute figures. 

As a matter of fact, Germany with its 68,- 
000,000 inhabitants in 1914 has had 1,580,000 
killed, while France with its scarcely 40,000,000 
inhabitants has a total of dead which has not 
been oflficially published at the moment of this 
writing but which those who are semi-oflBcially 
informed know to be greater than the figures 
of German deaths just given. 

Besides, not to speak of the numberless 



PREFACE XIX 

wounded who may recover sooner or later, 
France has about one miUion cripples and in- 
valids, and one milHon and a half coming out 
of the war with serious and permanent forms 
of illness; say, 4 millions of the physically and 
morally best men of France destroyed or re- 
duced to the most serious incapacity. (If, in 
proportion to its population, the United States 
had had losses on the same scale as those of 
France, these losses would be about 10 millions 
of Americans). 

This is not all. At least 2 millions of French 
civilians have endured the Boche yoke for 
the space of four years, and the health of great 
numbers among them has been broken down 
by what they have undergone. Thousands 
of women and girls have been forced to bear 
the worst ineffaceable stain. 

The evil effects of the war on the popula- 
tion of France will be still more aggravated 
by the fact that the French birth-rate is a 
third less than that of Germany. It is, there- 
fore, certain that Germany will repair her 
losses in men much more quickly than France. 

This situation of the French population is so 
serious that it will make real and definitive vic- 
tory for France impossible, unless the conditions 
of peace imposed by the Allies shall bring about 



XX PREFACE 

in Europe such a condition that Germany shall 
not be able to profit by her superiority in num- 
bers by renewing her attacks on France, 

Let us now take up the economic inferiority 
in which France finds herself with respect to 
Germany at the moment of the signature of 
the armistice. 

War expenses have been very much heavier 
for France than for Germany. A French shell 
made with English coal and American steel 
is, of course, very much dearer than a German 
shell made with metal stolen from Briey and 
coal seized from the Belgians; and this is true 
not only of nearly all materials of war but 
also food, when we compare the expenses of 
the two countries during the war. 

The richest provinces of France have been 
devastated; they cannot be restored under 
a very long time, even if Germany pays the 
expenses. Germany, on the other hand, is in- 
tact, therefore in an infinitely more advan- 
tageous position to resume her activities after 
the peace. 

Any reparation for direct damage done which 
Germany makes to France, can only at the 
best put things back as they were before 
the war. But it must be distinctly under- 
stood that this reparation for direct damage 



PREFACE xxi 

leaves still existing the indirect damage which 
has been inflicted upon the whole of France 
by the war — indirect damage which is almost 
never spoken of, and which in the material 
field is infinitely greater than the direct damage 
done to the invaded French departments. This 
indirect material damage consists in the costs 
of the war to France — so great that only to 
pay the interest on the loans made and the 
pensions to the widows, orphans, and wounded, 
the taxes paid by the French, which were 1 bil- 
lion of dollars before the war, will be increased 
in a nearly permanent form to almost 3 billions 
of dollars. Thus, in spite of the optimistic as- 
sertions which I sometimes hear, I claim that 
in a country of which the population has been 
so thoroughly decimated as that of France, 
it would be practically impossible to make 
the people pay each year for a length of time 
three times as much in taxes as before the war. 
The word "reparation" only having been 
generally understood hitherto as applying to 
direct damages, we have as a result that, owing 
to the fact of the indirect material damages 
which the war has caused France, she finds 
herseK at the time of signing the armistice 
under a financial burden considerably heavier 
than that of Germany. 



xxii PREFACE 

These things lead us to the inevitable con- 
clusion that when the armistice was signed 
the losses of all kinds produced by the war 
were considerably greater for France, and it 
is therefore perfectly fair to say that the con- 
clusion of the armistice only assures a virtual 
victory to France. In fact, if the conditions 
of peace to be imposed on Germany do not 
radically abolish in some way the difference 
in mutual situation between France and Ger- 
many when the armistice was concluded, as 
far as actual losses of men and money are con- 
cerned, the superiority in the mutual position 
which will finally decide the real victory of 
France over Germany cannot be realized. 
In this case, in a very few years after the con- 
clusion of peace, France, to the surprise of 
all the world, would appear in a condition of 
real and irremediable defeat, after having 
been in a condition of virtual victory at the 
moment of the signature of the armistice. 
It is, therefore, plain that this signature and 
even the occupation of Alsace-Lorraine are 
by no means sufficient to secure the real and 
definitive victory to France. This can only be 
settled long after the conclusion of peace, 
provided first that the terms of the armistice 
are thoroughly applied, and afterward that 
the conditions of peace, carefully considered 



PREFACE xxiii 

in the interest of Europe and the whole world, 
assure to France material reparation exten- 
sive enough to compensate for the immense 
disadvantage from the point of view of in- 
debtedness and the state of population, as 
explained above, at which she stands with 
regard to Germany at the present time. 

* 

The whole German pacifist manoeuvre since 
the conclusion of the armistice has precisely 
in view the prevention of France and her Allies 
from accomplishing those results which are 
the conditions of real victory. This Boche 
manoeuvre in its essence consists in this: To 
profit by the words "republic" and "socialism," 
so that the Boche Social Democrats, who are 
nearly all tainted with the Pan-Germanist spirit 
and have vigorously supported the Kaiser for 
four years, may bring about by their connec- 
tion with the pacifist Socialists of the Allied 
countries, who know nothing of Germany and 
easily allow themselves to be taken in by 
phrases, that peace shall be negotiated with 
the greatest possible speed and concluded with 
the approval of the "Internationale." The 
success of this manoeuvre will secure for Ger- 
many the following results: 

1st. Peace will be concluded very quickly 



XXIV PREFACE 

before an exhaustive study by the AlKes of 
the vast and difficult problems which the war 
has presented. 

2d. The responsibility for the war being 
concentrated on Kaiserism, the German people 
for the sake of republican fraternity will only 
be forced to repair a small part of the damage 
they have caused. 

These two results will of themselves be suf- 
ficient to save Germany from defeat to-day, 
and to assure her of victory to-morrow, for 
they will leave the following consequences 
when but a few years have passed: 

The peace being merely a patched-up one, 
the anti-Pan-Germanist Slavic states, Bohemia, 
Jugo-Slavia, Roumania and Poland, will not 
be securely organized. The Germans will keep 
on with their intrigues among them all the 
more easily because they will have remained 
practically the masters of Russia, deprived of 
its middle class destroyed by the Bolshevists. 

France having to support the burden of 
the enormous excess of its war expenses in 
comparison with Germany would succumb 
financially. The French birth-rate, lower than 
that of Germany, and the French losses in men, 
greater than those of Germany, would each 
year after the war increase the relative weak- 



PREFACE XXV 

ness of France. Thus a state of things would 
be brought about which would enable the 
German people to accomplish that of which 
Maximilian Harden warned us nearly three 
years ago when he said: 

''If it is felt in France that peace can be 
possible only through the restoration of Alsace- 
Lorraine, and if we are forced to sign such a 
peace, the 70 millions of Germans will soon 
destroy it." (See the Temps, February 9th, 
1916). 

On the day when this attack is brought about 
by the conditions just explained, France — which 
has saved the world by giving England time 
to arm herself and the United States time to 
become convinced of the Pan-Germanist peril 
— will go down irretrievably in the midst of 
her glory. 

This is the result that the Germans are seek- 
ing, and that the Allies of France, morally 
and materially united, ought to prevent at 
any price. What I have said shows that we 
are at ^present really in this curious position: 
we may have to-day the appearance of victory 
and to-morrow the reality of defeat. To avoid 
the danger, however, it is enough to see the 
Boche manoeuvre clearly and not allow our- 
selves to be misled by ideologists. 



xxvi PREFACE 

It would be a terrible mistake to believe 
that a German republic will abandon all war- 
like ideas and wishes for revenge. Very prob- 
ably a German republic would be extremely 
military, particularly if the Allies were so 
foolish as not to deprive the Germans of the 
means to rebuild their forces; and in any case 
no precaution can be too great to avoid a repeti- 
tion of the war. I have explained in detail 
in this book (see page 70 and following) that 
one of the surest ways to prevent another 
war for the possession of Alsace-Lorraine would 
be to create in central Europe a barrier of 
free states, strongly anti-German, and as this 
would restrain Germany from fresh outbreaks 
in any direction, it should be brought about 
in the interest of the entire world. 



The essential object of the peace conference 
is to assure the reparation by the German 
people of the damages they have caused and 
to reconstruct Europe, but this reconstruction, 
to be durable, must be well done. In order 
that the new European machine which is to 
be built up from the parts of Pangermany 
should work smoothly under normal con- 
ditions, it should be very thoroughly put in 



PREFACE xxvii 



order by skilled mechanics, which is as much 
as to say that the rehabilitation of Europe 
demands the right solution of very numerous 
and difficult problems which require precise 
information on ethnography, national psy- 
chology, and practical political economy. Such 
information was certainly not possessed by 
many leaders in the Entente when the armi- 
stice was signed. The proof is this: 

It was only at the end of the fourth year 
of the war that the Entente understood the 
importance to the world of the Czecho-Slovak 
people, which for twenty-five years at least 
the Germans had considered as one of the 
greatest obstacles in the way of the Pangerman 
plan. It is only at the end of 1918 that 
Czecho-Slovaks were recognized by the AUies 
as an independent people. 

When the armistice was concluded the 
Roumanians and the Jugo-Slavs had not yet 
been recognized by the Entente with any- 
thing like the same formahty as in the case 
of the Czecho-Slovaks, though the creation 
of Greater Roumania and of a strong Jugo- 
slav state is just as necessary to the founda- 
tion of peace as the independence of Bohemia. 
I will not speak of a crowd of other questions 
raised by the war, particularly those relating 



xxviii PREFACE 

to finance, which are of immense importance, 
and have only been touched by the AUies in 
the most superficial way. Thus, the vital 
fact that the indirect damages made by Ger- 
man aggression in France are far larger than 
the direct damages, and like them call for 
reparation, has not yet been clearly brought 
out. 

It is under such circumstances that as I 
write these lines there is talk of an extremely 
early meeting of the peace conference, with 
the aim of deciding all these questions on which 
for many years the fate of nations will de- 
pend. 

I hold it as my solemn duty, in no way to 
be set aside, to declare openly that if the peace 
congress meets without taking the time needed 
to obtain in Central Europe informations which 
are now still lacking, fatal mistakes will inevi- 
tably result, and causes sure to provoke future 
conflicts will remain, which will soon bring forth 
their evil fruit. 

One cannot all at once "patch up" a peace 
and reconstitute Europe on a firm basis; the 
thing cannot be done. 

If the Germans are making the greatest 
effort to bring the peace conference together 
at the earliest possible moment it is because 



PREFACE XXIX 

they are well aware that the AUies lack in- 
formation, and hope to gain great advantage 
thereby. 

Public opinion would do well to protest at 
once against the hasty conclusion of the peace 
conference. The Allied people have spent their 
blood and their gold like water, and it is their 
right and their duty to insist that the fruit 
of so many sacrifices shall not be spoiled by 
unnecessary haste. 

In order to show the absolute need of avoid- 
ing a precipitate decision, I have in this book 
taken examples drawn from the war, chosen 
in such a way as also to enlighten my readers 
on the great events which have just passed 
with such extraordinary rapidity that their 
vast import is not easy to grasp. 

Chapter I reminds us how the Germans 
must have constantly deceived us, from the 
beginning of the war; for instance, by making 
us think that they were starving long before 
this famine had become a reality, which hap- 
pened in September-October, 1918, when re- 
volts in Austria-Hungary and the Allied occu- 
pation of the Danube cut communications 
between Germany and the East. 



XXX PREFACE 

This general survey of German methods of 
deceit shows us with what distrust we ought 
to receive their promises and transformations 
during the armistice. Aheady, it is easy to 
detect that these transformations are to a great 
extent camouflage. 

In Chapter II, I show under what terribly 
dangerous conditions the Germans made ready 
for the armistice trick, which would have per- 
haps succeeded if the great success of the Allies 
in the Balkans, and the insurrection of op- 
pressed peoples in Austria-Hungary, had not — 
in October, 1918 — abruptly changed the gen- 
eral situation in favor of the Allies. 

Chapter III makes clear that it was not 
owing to diplomatic discussions but to mili- 
tary actions and Slavic insurrections in Sep- 
tember-October, 1918 (the downfall of Bul- 
garia and of Austria-Hungary), which drove 
Germany to conclude an armistice on terms 
dictated by the Allies. 

Chapter III also shows that on the solution 
in favor of the Allies of the effectives problem 
depended the events of October, 1918, in central 
Europe, for up to that time the superiority 
in man-power was on the side of Pangermany. 
The same chapter contains an exhaustive 



PREFACE xxxi 

description of the errors, which in my opinion 
are made by the AUies, even at the present 
moment, as to German man-power. The 
deduction is that if the Alhes can really be 
wrong on a subject vitally important, it is 
certain that they lack indispensable informa- 
tion as to numbers of other questions, on the 
proper answers to which depends a firm and 
enduring peace. 

In the same chapter, I have studied the 
sources of military effectives which could pos- 
sibly be utilized in Russia by the German 
Republicans ( ! ) coquetting with the Russian 
Bolshevists. This shows that the Allies should 
cut Germany entirely off from Russia by a 
series of states organized as strongly as pos- 
sible: Poland, Bohemia, a democratic Magyar 
state. Greater Roumania, and Jugo-Slavia. 

Chapter IV describes the centres of imperial- 
ism which led to the formation and establish- 
ment of Pangermany, and shows with what 
care and in what manner the Allies should 
destroy these hotbeds to avert any renewal 
of the war. 

Finally, the Conclusions present conditions 
on the observance of which public opinion 
should insist in order to guard against the 



xxxii PREFACE 

dangers of the armistice period, and thus ar- 
rive at a well-founded peace, at an enduring 
and complete victory. 

New York, November 25, 1918. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PUSTACX - . - w - . . , 



tAM 

T 



CHAPTER L 
How TRX Gbrmaks Deckxvs Alueo FtTBLic Ofdt- 

lOK - 

I. The danger of a complacent optimism, and of the 
poisoning of Allied public opinion through 
biassed news coming from neutral nations, but 
of Boche origin. 

n. The results of a systematic poisoning of Allied 
opinion by the Germans, and the consequent 
danger. 

ni. The German high command directs pacifist of- 
fensives started from Berlin. 



CHAPTER n. 

How THE Germans, if Thet Secure ak Armistice, 
CouKT UPON Carrying off the Victory as a Con- 
sequence OF THE Economic Condition Created in 
Europe bt Four Years of War - - • - 51 

I. Germany's war profits form the chief basis of the 
pacifist mancBUvres. 

xzxiii 



xxxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

n. The fact that the circulation of paper currency 
in Germany is largely measured by the produce 
of her gigantic thefts, while, on the other hand, 
that of the Allies depends on their complete vic- 
tory, constitutes the second base of German 
schemes, 

in. If circumstances make it feasible, the Alsace-Lor- 
raine trick will be tried in order to enter on the 
practical realization of German plans by divid- 
ing the Allies, and leading France to "peace 
talk" before a complete victory. 

rV. Why the Germans believe that, if the Allies are led 
into "peace talk" before achieving a full grasp 
of the European situation which assures their 
victory, their financial ruin will ensue. This 
without more great battles would be enough to 
bring about the final success of Germany. 



CHAPTER m. 



PAGE 



Pangermant's Probable Military Strength, and 
Its Weakness at the Outset of the Fifth Year 
OF War - - . - - ... - 88 

I. The annual military contingent of Germany. 

n. Approximate strength of German mobilized forces 
in August, 1918. 

m. Critical discussion of the figures found to represent 
the man-power of Germany. 

rV. The probable total forces of Pangermaiiy in Au- • 
gust, 1918. 

V. How new sources of effectives could have been 
used to offset the American numbers, if the Al- 
"'-■ lies had not acted in the Balkans and time hajd v 
been left to the Germans. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxxv 

VI. How it is the successes of the Allies in the Balkans 
that secure the superiority in man-power to the 
Entente. 

VII. The teachings of the recent past and of the 
present prove the immense power of political 
strategy, and that for the Allies the Danube- 
Central Europe front exerts a decisive influence 
on the issue of the war. 



CHAPTER IV. 



PAGE 



Why the Allies of Germany Have Thought It 
Was to Their Interest to Act With Her - - 181 

I. Why Turkey went with Germany. 

II. The advantages which the Bulgarians thought to 
gain by siding with Berlin. 

in. Reasons for which Austria-Hungary is unavoid- 
ably an indispensable base for Pangerman im- 
perialism. 

rV. The five centres of imperialism must be de- 
stroyed. 



Conclusions -------- 217 



MAPS AND FACSIMILES 



PAQE 



Ce que serait rAlIemagne agrandie de rAutriche (fac- 
simile of a map published ip 1901) ... viii 

Pan-Germany at the end of 1917 - - - - - ix 

Map of the war or Pan-Germani^» August, 1918 - 14, 15 

German offensive and counter offensive of the Allies, 

April, 1918, to August 6, 1918 - - - - 29 

Alsace-Lorraine and Central Pan-Germany ... 75 

Facsimiles of pamphlet published in 1914 - - 116, 117 

New sources of possible effectives for the Germans - - 154 

The great nationalities in Turkey . . . ^ . 189 

The encroachments of the planned Bulgarian hegemony 

upon the neighboring states - - - - - 194 

The three parts of Austria-Hungary ... - 202 

The nationalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina ... 204 

The nationalities in Austria ...... 206 

The nationalities in Hungary ...... 207 

The five centres of Imperialism in Pan-Germany - - 216 

The Europe of the Peace - 234 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW THE GEBMANS DECEIVE ALLIED PUBLIC 

OPINION, 

I. The danger of a complacent optimism, and of the 

poisoning of Allied public opinion through biassed 

news coming from neutral nations, but of Boche 

origin. 

n. The results of a systematic poisoning of Allied opinion 

by the Germans, and the consequent danger. 
in. The German high command directs pacifist offensives 
started from Berlin. 

It is my conviction that Allied public 
opinion is constantly manipulated by the 
Germans, who thus shape it in a manner 
favorable to their plans, I know that this 
statement will seem surprising; it is never- 
theless true, as I hope to show. 

Few are aware of a fact of tremendous im- 
portance: from the outset of the war, the 
government of Berlin has exerted a constant 
pressure on the Allies in Europe through a 
part of their own press. The fact that the 
war was a surprise to the Allies proves that 
they had previously no direct and trustworthy 



2 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

information as to the Central Powers and the 
Balkans. In the course of the war, the same 
lack of information has been amply proved 
by the Entente's mistakes in policy, mistakes 
now understood and bitterly regretted. On 
the other hand, for the first three years of the 
struggle many in France and England allowed 
themselves to be complacently optimistic. 
Numbers of good people, seeing the huge En- 
tente coalition, felt sure of a speedy triumph. 
Naturally this systematic optimism caused 
many among the Alhes to accept any favor- 
able reports as true. The Germans with their 
usual cleverness have employed a very simple 
method to turn these circumstances to their 
own advantage. In neutral papers, partic- 
ularly those of Switzerland and Holland, they 
constantly published and continue to publish 
short extracts from German newspapers, or 
despatches, ten or fifteen Unes long, as to the 
state of aCFairs in the German Empire, and 
from the beginning of the war, the Entente 
newspapers of Europe have made use of these 
extracts and statements to supply the lack 
of exact information about the enemy. The 
greater part of the news from Turkey, Bul- 
garia, Austria-Hungary, before their collapse, 
and Germany appearing in Allied papers has 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 3 

been dated from Zurich, Berne, or Amster- 
dam. The German Government has kept its 
own press, as well as that of the Allies, under 
the strictest observation, and every stranger 
passing through Pangerman territory has been 
closely watched; how, then, was it possible 
that information from such sources could be 
true? I have made a study for twenty-five 
years of the states which have made up Pan- 
germany, and being thus in a position to judge 
of the worth of these reports, I can state 
positively that, during the first four years of 
the war, eight out of ten of these items were 
false, and made in Berlin. 

This biassed information has been arranged 
with great ingenuity; it has taken a variety of 
forms, and contained just enough falsehood to 
be useful to the Boche cause. Allied news- 
papers and correspondents in Switzerland and 
Holland were frequently taken in, and reprinted 
this so-called information. The great number 
of these reprints caused the danger, which has 
been most serious, for since the beginning of the 
war, Germany has succeeded in using them at 
any given moment to foster the state of mind 
among the Allies necessary to the success of 
any serious military operation. For example: 

No one now doubts that the junction with 



4 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Turkey and Bulgaria was of vital importance 
to Germany. Austria-Germany must have 
yielded long ago without the help of the 
Bulgar-Turks and their eastern resources. It 
was therefore necessary to crush Serbia at any 
cost, as a condition of this eastern alliance. 

From the early part of 1915, the psycholog- 
ical foundations for this enterprise were laid 
by means of the German papers, all docilely 
following instructions from the General Staff 
in. Berlin, and dwelling on the idea that "the 
decision must come on the west front, which 
is all-important, and where alone we must 
look for it." 

Many organs of the western Allies, being 
converted to this theory of the principal front, 
which, in fact, allowed Germany to take pos- 
session of three-fourths of Europe, have found 
in these Boche statements arguments in sup- 
port of their ideas, and have reprinted them 
with a readiness which must have been de- 
lightful to Berlin, for at this time the General 
Staff dreaded above everything to see the 
Anglo-French send even 150,000 men to the 
Danube. These with the 350,000 Serbians 
and 700,000 Roumanians, would have made 
up a force of 1,200,000 men, amply suflScient 
to have kept Austria-Germany from seizing 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 5 

the granary of the east, to keep open through 
Roumania communication with the Russians^ 
who were still in Austria, in eastern Galicia^ 
and to prevent the entrance of Bulgaria and 
Turkey into the war, the Balkan campaigns 
having stripped them of munitions. 

In addition the government of Constan- 
tinople as soon as it saw itseK deprived of the 
possibility of German help, by the estabhsh- 
ment of a firm Allied front on the Danube, 
would have been shortly forced to reopen the 
Turkish straits. 

The interest of the Germans in the destruc- 
tion of Serbia was therefore absolutely vital. 
Their propaganda having helped to prevent 
France and England from understanding the 
extraordinary importance of the Danube front 
at the beginning of 1915, in October of that 
year, they began the invasion. 

At that time, most men at the head of west- 
ern affairs thought the east could have no 
decisive influence on the fate of the war. 
There was, nevertheless, a party in France 
which wished to send a strong expedition from 
Salonika to the help of Serbia, with the ob- 
ject of sharply opposing the junction of Ger- 
many and the east. At the end of 1915, it 
was, therefore, much to the interest of Berlin 



6 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

to persuade the Franco-English that there 
was nothing to be gained by reinforcing Ser- 
bia. As a part of Allied opinion was opposed 
to the Balkan expedition, this was pressed 
into the service of the German plans by means 
of a great number of despatches which ap- 
peared in the Dutch and Swiss papers, copied 
in a simple-minded way by the French and 
EngUsh press. These despatches stated that 
railroad communications were already re- 
opened between Hungary and Bulgaria, via 
Serbia. A comparison of the date of these 
first despatches as they appeared in the En- 
tente press with the truth afterward published, 
as to the re-establishment of normal communi- 
cation by rail between the Central Empires 
and Bulgaria shows a diflFerence of about six 
weeks. Now these reports, though nominally 
from neutral sources, came really from Ger- 
many, and as they anticipated events they 
resulted in encouraging those in France and 
England who opposed the Salonika expedition. 
Their argument had a specious appearance of 
truthfulness. They said: *'Let us not strip 
our most important front, for it is too late; 
we have lost our chance in the Balkans; rail- 
road communications are already reopened 
between Hungary and Bulgaria." This was 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 7 

enough to satisfy Berlin, and this one false 
idea disseminated by German propaganda had 
incalculable consequences, and for a long time 
sufficed to turn the current of the war into 
channels desired by Germany. 

If the numerous despatches from Boche 
sources had not misled Franco-English opin- 
ion, and if Serbia had been promptly rein- 
forced at the end of 1915 when Roumania 
could have come in with great eflFect while 
Russia was still fighting bravely, and the Slavs 
and Latins of Austria-Hungary were ready for 
revolt, the known facts show that the Anglo- 
French could have saved the Balkan situation 
to a great extent, and could have prevented 
the economic and military reorganization of 
Turkey and Bulgaria by the Germans. With- 
out this eastern alliance, Austria-Germany 
would long since have become unable to hold 
out against the coalition as is proved by the 
terrible blow given to Austria-Germany by the 
Allied victory over Bulgaria. These consid- 
erations bring home to us the deep injury done 
to the Allied cause by the newspaper propa- 
ganda of biassed news. 

Many similar instances could be cited; in 
fact, each important German campaign has 
been aided by this inspired information coming 



g AN ENDURING VICTORY 

through Holland and Switzerland, which is 
then reprinted by a part of the Allied Euro- 
pean papers with a creduhty hard to under- 
stand. 

This has happened so often that I believe 
there is a department in the General Staff at 
Berlin which might be called "Bureau for the 
manufacture of blunders to be made by the 
Allies." In this bureau are elaborated biassed 
news despatches which, when finished, are 
sent out through the neutral press. 

To show how far it is possible to go in this 
direction with the Allied newspapers in Eu- 
rope, this BerHn office feels its way by pub- 
lishing news as absurd as it is false. Thus, 
about two years ago almost the whole Allied 
European press copied a neutral despatch 
asserting that William II was dying of cancer. 
Recently many of our papers have informed 
us that Hindenburg had died of an apoplectic 
attack brought on by a violent quarrel with 
the Emperor; this also purported to be a neu- 
tral rumor. If news of this caliber is believed 
one can understand how ready are many AUied 
papers to reprint less sensational reports, but 
some of these are even more dangerous; as 
witness the repeated rumors which have led 
the Allies to believe that overtures for a sepa- 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 

rate peace had come from Austria-Hungary, 
Bulgaria, or Turkey, or that a coolness had 
arisen between these countries and Berlin. 
The facts have proved, however, that only 
Bulgaria has tried seriously to negotiate sepa- 
rately, and even this only recently. 

In fact, the Germans hoodwinked the Allies 
just as at a Spanish bull-fight the matador 
distracts the attention of the bull so as to take 
him at a disadvantage. The bull is ten tiraes 
as strong as the man, and can soon make an 
end of him by a direct charge. But, as we 
know, red is particularly obnoxious to the 
bull, and that is why the matador flourishes 
a short red cloak. The enraged animal can 
see nothing else, and as he makes his furious 
charge his enemy's long sword is plunged into 
his withers. 

The Germans play this identical game witla 
the Allies. They know that our united 
strength is greater than theirs, and that they 
would be quickly beaten if we hit them in 
the right place. To avoid this they distract 
oiir attentioh froni the weak points of Pan- 
germany by niisleading despatches^ which af^ 
feet us as the matador's red cloak acts on 
the bull. 

Our complacent optimism inclines us to 



10 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

believe this manufactured German news; our 
minds have been perverted by it, so that we see 
things as we wish and not as they are. This 
explains how, only a few weeks after the war 
began, the Allied pubUc in Europe firmly be- 
lieved that the shortage of foodstuflFs in Ger- 
many would soon cause her to yield, that sup- 
plies for her munitions were lacking, that the 
Socialists would force a peace on the Berlin 
government, that their reserves were nearly 
exhausted, that each German oflFensive was 
the last, the sign of the desperation of a people 
longing for peace, etc. 

Now, after four years, results have shown 
the emptiness of these conclusions, but as 
they have constantly been repeated for so 
long a time, in spite of themselves the Allies 
think about Germany much as Berlin would 
have them, and this on many important points. 
This state of mind favors the unprecedented 
eflForts that the Germans make to secure an 
armistice before Germany itself should be 
completely invaded. 

Of course, it is pleasant to find news in the 
paper which leads one to think that the war 
will soon be over; but war is not a pleasant 
thing; it is a grim necessity, which must be 
ended as soon as possible by a decisive vie- 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 11 

tory. Pleasant tidings when they are untrue 
greatly prolong the war, and cause the death 
of great numbers of brave men; this encour- 
aging information, when inexact, may have the 
most sinister consequences. 

It is largely because much of our Alhed 
press has imbibed false news, that the Entente 
with its large forces and resources of all kinds 
has not brought them to bear where they would 
have won a decision in the quickest and easiest 
way. For this reason, we are confronted with 
the remarkable fact that there are 68 millions 
of Germans, 50 millions subjects of Austria- 
Hungary (inadequately prepared from the 
military standpoint, and of whom 28 millions 
at least are thoroughly anti-German), 5 mil- 
lions of Bulgarians, and 20 millions of Turks 
lacking proper armament on account of the 
Balkan Wars, and of whom at least 14 millions 
wished to keep out of this struggle — altogether 
a total of 143 million inhabitants of the Central 
Empires, who have been able for four years to 
conquer or withstand 370 millions of Allies 
(France has 40 millions, England 46 millions, 
Italy 36 millions, Serbia 5, Roumania 8, Japan 
53, and Russia 182 millions). (These figures 
do not include the large colonies, which have 
rendered such valuable assistance to the Allies.) 



U AN ENDURING VICTORY 

This situation has made indispensable the entry 
of 100 millions of Americans into the war. 



II. 

The systematic dissemination of biassed 
news among the Allies combines with the in- 
jBuence of the pacifists and Bolchevist groups 
that exist in all the Entente countries who 
play the German game — unintentionally per- 
haps, but that matters little. A considerable 
part of Allied public opinion is so poisoned and 
distorted by this double influence that it forms 
wrong views on essential points, on points 
where a right understanding is vitally neces- 
sary. For example, the action especially of 
England and America as to the war was de- 
cided by their indignation at Germany's viola- 
tion of the treaties guaranteeing the neutrality 
of Belgium, and of international laws as to 
marine warfare. There can be no doubt that 
when Germany cynically broke her word, it 
so shocked Great Britain and the United States 
that they were convinced of the necessity of 
the great sacrifices of men and money de- 
manded of them. 

Since these great countries entered the war, 
Germany has broken every law, human and 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 13 

divine, in a way never before known in history. 
She tortures prisoners, kills the wounded, and 
torpedoes hospital-ships; her soldiers resort 
to the most treacherous tricks; the German 
authorities sent to Bucharest tubes filled with 
bacilli to spread infectious diseases. In the 
countries they occupy, they have killed thou- 
sands of civilians, including women and chil- 
dren. They stirred up the Turks to murder 
more than a million of Armenians, and hun- 
dreds of thousands of Greeks. On the very 
morrow of its signature, the government of 
Beriin had violated the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 
which it had itself dictated. It is clear now, 
therefore, that no right-thinking man can ever 
again trust in the German word. It would 
indeed be insane to do so. In spite of these 
self-evident facts, corroborated by common 
sense and the war map, there is actually a 
large number of people among the Allies wil- 
ling to accept the idea of a negotiated peace, 
which would put an end to hostilities by a 
treaty in which Germany would pledge her- 
self to restitution and future good conduct. 
The war into which many of the Allies were 
led by their horror at the German violation 
of a "scrap of paper" would thus, in spite of 
their unheard-of sacrifices in men and money, 



14 



AN ENDURING VICTORY 




HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 



15 




16 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

be ended for these same Allies by another 
"scrap of paper" ! If those among the Allies 
who admit this eventuality showed similar 
signs of mental aberration in their private af- 
fairs, would they not soon be put in a lunatic 
asylum? 

But there are other reasons which show 
yet more strongly how little the real bases of 
victory and lasting peace are understood in 
Entente countries, even among the most en- 
lightened. A great proportion of the Allies 
think the war will end by a peace conference 
around the green table, between our represen- 
tatives and those of the Central Powers. A 
glance at the war map (see Pangermany in 
August^ 1918, page 14) will prove that this 
is practically impossible. The choice is clear. 
If the Allies open negotiations with Germany 
without having destroyed competely her grip 
on Central Europe — the key of the world — 
which implies the dismemberment of Austria- 
Hungary, the German hegemony will con- 
tinue; their position will be so weak that these 
negotiations can only end, as did the pseudo- 
negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, in complete de- 
ception followed by the most irremediable of 
catastrophes. But if the Allies, after having 
materially destroyed the German hold on 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 17 

Central Europe — which is quite possible if, 
thanks to extended air transport, they supply 
the necessary means of action to the oppressed 
peoples of that region — Czecho-SIovaks, Jugo- 
slavs, and Roumanians and in reinforcing with 
them the AUied army of the Balkans — if they 
are willing after such frightful sacrifices to 
discuss peace on equal terms with Germany in 
a conference, instead of purely and simply 
dictating their just conditions as victorious 
soldiers, conscious of the right, it will then be 
clear that the Allies are completely ignorant 
of German psychology, and a peace will be 
made which will allow Prussian militarism to 
continue to exist, and later to begin it all over 
again. 

Under the influence of constant Boche- 
inspired though pretended-neutral despatches, 
many among us think that Germany is ruined 
by the war; but the truth is that she is run- 
ning over with wealth of every kind stolen 
from three-fourths of Europe, as I shall show 
in Chapter II. 

This German news has also convinced large 
numbers that the Teutons can be starved into 
submission, but such is not the fact. 

Everything is comparative in war. From 
the standpoint of food-supply, we need only 



18 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

ask if conditions in the Central Empires were 
better or worse than with us. Let us look 
into the situation as it was up to October, 
1918, that is up to the collapse of Bulgaria. 
The German people, undoubtedly, suffered a 
serious lack in foodstuffs, but much of this 
suffering came from the severe but far-sighted 
prudence of the Prussian administration, which 
imposed strict regulations in order to hold out 
longer against the Allies. The German dif- 
ficulties were less in production than in trans- 
portation, owing to the lack of means of 
communication between Germany and the 
East. These difficulties of transport, how- 
ever, diminished with time by the construc- 
tion of new lines of railroad, which were being 
rapidly built, especially since Germany con- 
trolled the whole course of the Danube, 
which running from southern Germany to the 
Black Sea, north of the Roumanian Dobrudja, 
furnished easy transport for Serbia, Bulgaria, 
Roumania, and the vast regions belonging to 
Turkey and Russia, bordering on the Black 
Sea. For these reasons, though Germans may 
have suffered sharply from insufficient food, 
they could not be starved out. There was 
no famine in the Central Empires except in 
Slav or Latin districts, where Teutonic cruelty 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 19 

used this hideous method to slowly destroy 
a hated people. It was stated that Germany 
was more in need of food than the Allies, but 
how could this be? When you study the war 
map (page 14), you realize that England, 
France, and Italy were forced to supply them- 
selves from Australia and America at ruin- 
ously high rates, owing to the increased freight 
charges due to submarine warfare. 

On the other hand, Germany had easy access 
to all the granaries of Europe; Hungary, 
Roumania, the Balkans, Asia Minor, southern 
Russia were all free to her, and she could plun- 
der them as she pleased. She stole everything 
she needed, over immense territories. She has 
50 millions of slaves. Allied subjects, who raise 
her crops without wages, and Christian pop- 
ulations in Turkey were forced to intensive 
cultivation for her in Asia Minor. Even be- 
hind the German lines in the west the unlucky 
Belgians and French, with their beasts of bur- 
den, work for the Teutons. They even had 
to keep a strict account of the eggs, most of 
which were reserved for the Germans. All over 
the wide Pangermanist territory production 
was carefully supervised. Under these circum- 
stances, how could Germany be starved into 
peace before France, England, or Italy .^ But 



20 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

if the Allies wish it, famine can become a reality 
in Austria-Germany, Now that the Allies are 
masters of the Danube, the revictualling of 
Austria-Germany is at once imperilled. 

The aim of Berlin's biassed news has been to 
conceal the great extent of the German gains 
in the east, and to concentrate the attention 
of the Allies on the western front, so that 
they may not view the European situation 
as a whole. This aim has been easily reached, 
especially since the Allies lost their hold on 
the east, enabling Germany to bring all her 
available force to bear on the western front, 
where by force of circumstances all large mili- 
tary operations are now taking place. As we 
now no longer had the entire European war 
map in view (page 14) a large section of Allied 
public opinion was apt to give undue impor- 
tance to actions in the west, though these 
could not bring about a final decision and real 
and complete victory, while the surrender of 
Bulgaria has proved by its consequences the 
immense importance of the Balkan effort. 

I will cite, by way of illustration, the effect 
on the Allied public of the loss and recapture 
of a part of the salient between Rheims and 
Soissons. 

On the 27th of May, 1918, as a result of 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 21 

the surprise at the Chemin-des-Dames, the 
Teutons succeeded in forming a good-sized 
salient between these points. A week later, 
they advanced to Chateau-Thierry; less than 
80 kilometres from Paris, which was there- 
fore threatened with severe bombardment in 
case of further advance. However, since the 
15th of July, General Foch has so ably handled 
his forces that, assisted by American reinforce- 
ments, they regained up to the 30th of July a 
part of the salient, showing a dash and courage 
beyond all praise. Laying aside other great 
Entente successes which have since occurred, 
I select the 30th of July for my illustration. 
The Germans were then forced to retire from 
Chateau-Thierry to Fere-en-Tardenois, a dis- 
tance of about 20 kilometres. What did a 
part of the Allied press at once say.^ It de- 
clared that Germany had suflFered a decisive 
defeat, which would open the eyes of her 
people, and deal a terrible blow at Prussian 
militarism, etc. Observe that this sort of thing 
was encouraged even on the 30th of July by 
the Boches, who have a deep interest in making 
the Allies count on victory before it is within 
their grasp. It is easy to see why, for Germany 
wants to "discuss" peace terms while she 
holds firmly to the territory she has occupied. 



22 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

and means to keep. She has, therefore, the 
strongest reasons to wish to persuade the AUies 
that their successes are great enough to justify 
peace talk. 

The London Daily Express, followed by sev- 
eral other Allied papers, published a despatch 
dated Geneva, July 30th, 1918: 

*'Za Suisse states that a high neutral official, 
who has just arrived at Basle from Berlin, 
declares that in spite of all German precau- 
tions to hide the defeat in the west, the truth 
has penetrated among the masses. 

"Such great moral depression has not been 
seen before during the war, which it is now 
considered is lost whenever Foch chooses his 
hour to strike. . . . 

"The German losses during the last three 
months reach nearly a million. The losses in 
the last two oflfensives amounted to 350,000 
and these have completely disorganized the 
plans of the high command." 

Let us consider these despatches and com- 
ments coming from this mysterious neutral, 
but one so well informed that on the 30th of 
July he knew the exact amount of the Ger- 
man losses for some weeks previously, though 
the BerHn General Staff is not usually very 
communicative on such points. 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 23 

Let us examine what had taken place when 
this despatch was dated, without considering 
the great retirements of the Germans, which 
have taken place since, yielding to military 
pressure and, perhaps, also because of the 
political strategy spoken of in Chapter II. 
As I desire especially to emphasize, I am 
simply proposing by choosing a precise and 
limited example to show the necessity, if the 
Allies would arrive at a true victory, of under- 
standing the importance of military events by 
distinguishing carefully between their local 
significance and the influence which they may 
have upon the European war-field considered 
as a whole, which is quite a different thing. 

Can it be denied that the operations en- 
gaged in by the Allies south of the Soissons- 
Rheims sahent after July 15, were chiefly in- 
tended to cover Paris, and prevent a bom- 
bardment? This local object was completely 
attained on the 30th. The operation was skil- 
fully conducted by General Foch, and all the 
Allies did wonders, including the American 
"boys," who proved themselves extraordinarily 
fine, working well with the other troops, while 
their spirit and freshness were of incalculable 
service in putting new life into soldiers, who 
had stood the strain of four years of terrible 



24 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

struggle. The success of the operation was 
due mainly to these American reinforcements, 
and it is the plain truth to say that America 
saved Paris, the heart of France, of which 
the Germans thought themselves sure. They 
also believed they were about to end the war 
by a brilliant and decisive victory. The de- 
feat inflicted by the Allies has crushed this 
hope. The vast majority of Germans wished 
to ruin France completely, and it is certain 
that it was with disappointed rage that they 
accepted their defeat and deception, and found 
themselves obliged to continue the war with 
modified plans. 

Our successes dating from July 30th were a 
great encouragement, and we were fully en- 
titled to our joy in them; they were still in- 
creasing and showed much improvement in the 
conduct of the war. The unity of command 
with the help from America have proved their 
value and given rise to the highest hopes which 
have since been entirely justified. Such events 
naturally make us optimistic, and optimism is 
necessary to victory, and should be cultivated 
whenever it is justified by facts resting upon 
a solid basis. 

This appears to be a fair estimate of our 
recapture of part of the Soissons-Rheims sa- 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 25 

lient on July 30th, viewed from the local stand- 
point. But in order to show how overcon- 
fidence can imperil the real victory of the 
Allies, and to demonstrate the biassed char- 
acter of the news from the Swiss source quoted 
above, let us see how the situation on July 
30th, 1918, eliminating, I repeat, all subse- 
quent events, could aflFect the evolution of the 
war, considered in its whole European aspect. 
The whole mihtary situation on the 30th 
of July is seen at a glance on the map (page 
14). Germany was mistress of three-fourths 
of Europe, in control of large sections of Rus- 
sia and Asia Minor, while the Allies, pent up 
in the west, could only feed themselves through 
maritime communications, lengthy and dif- 
ficult in the extreme. At Chateau-Thierry, 
the Germans were 80 kilometres from Paris, 
and when they fell back 20 kilometres on 
July 30th, they were still only 100 kilometres 
from the heart of France. Our mysterious 
neutral assures us that German opinion inter- 
preted this retreat as implying the loss of the 
war to Germany. I am convinced that such 
an opinion, voluntarily accepted at this date 
by many of the Allies, would be highly prej- 
udicial to a real and complete victory by pro- 
ducing dangerous delusions. I think I know 



26 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

the Germans and the methods of their Gen- 
eral Staff well enough to be sure that the 
opinion attributed to the German people at 
large, on the 30th of July, cannot be the true 
one. No doubt it enraged them to be balked 
when Paris and the end seemed near; but it 
is a far cry from that to the belief that a re- 
tirement of 20 kilometres at that date meant 
the loss of the war. 

Besides, we may be sure that the German 
people knew only part of the truth. 

Another despatch from Zurich in the New 
York Evening Worlds August 12th, says: 

"A neutral banker just returned from Ger- 
many was interviewed here to-day. 'Events 
on the French front depress the educated Ger- 
mans, but the masses are ignorant of the real 
situation,' he said." 

This flatly contradicts the former despatch 
above, and may be regarded as true because 
it is much more probable. The Berlin General 
Staff, by means of absolute authority, exerted 
over the German press, could easily make the 
people believe that the retirement of 20 kilo- 
metres from Chateau-Thierry was a check, 
not a serious defeat. Even at that time public 
confidence was maintained by sight of the war 
map, showing the immense territories held 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 27 

by the Germans, and their enormous gains in 
consequence; while on such a map a retire- 
ment of 20 kilometres looks insignificant. It 
is ridiculous, therefore, to believe that the 
German people thought the war to be lost 
on the 30th of July. 

But common sense shows still better that 
it could not have been so. Let us suppose 
that the Allies had first advanced and then 
retired just as the Germans did, and imagine 
ourselves liberators of the people enslaved 
by Teutonic ambition with three-fourths of 
Europe in our power, Germany surrounded 
geographically, and the Allied army within 
80 kilometres of Berlin. Suppose then the 
Germans bringing up their reserves and making 
a great effort, admirably carried out. They 
would push back the Allies from a distance of 
20 kilometres to one of a hundred from Berlin. 
Would the Allies after such a blow believe 
that the war was lost ? Certainly not. Then, 
knowing the tenacity of the Germans, why 
should they think themselves vanquished be- 
cause they were forced back 20 kilometres on 
the 30th of July.? 

Looking at the argument from another 
angle, the annexed map shows the French 
military front before the great German of- 



28 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

fensive which began seriously in April, 1918, 
the extreme Hmits reached by this oflensive, 
and the ground retaken by the AUies by Au- 
gust 3d, as against that gained by the Ger- 
mans. 

At the end of March, before the offen- 
sive, we did not consider ourselves victorious, 
though it was then the general opinion that 
the Germans could not advance much on the 
western front. They did, however, gain con- 
siderable ground in three directions: toward 
Armentieres, toward Amiens, and as far as 
Chateau-Thierry. By the 3d of July, we had 
retaken nearly a fourth of the ground lost 
since April, as may be seen on the map. Look- 
ing at the whole European theatre of war under 
these circumstances, how could we call our- 
selves more victorious then than we did be- 
fore the German offensive, when they had 
less of our territory than on August 3d.'^ 

It may be said, because the Germans lost 
enormously in men and material during their 
retreat. Let us look into this question. True, 
their losses were so great as first to bring their 
offensive to a stand and then to force them 
to fall back. But can we seriously believe that 
our own losses from April to the end of July 
were not practically equal to those of the Ger- 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 



29 



GERMAN OFFENSIVE AND COUNTER OFFENSIVE 
OF THE ALLIES, APRIL 1918 TO AUGUST 6, 1918. 



TWERP 




■■•«•«■ Fnot in April, 1918, before the great German offennve 

aaaiai* fotieme limit leached by the great offensive in the middle of July, 1918 

m i 1 1 1 1 111 Reborn «vuaat«d by the Germans as a result of the eomiter-offeosive of the Allie* 

Ttie dbtiM inlietttd In order of the respective «itlidnw*b »nt (l) The Msrne (rant be* 
hnr the Veiie: ($) tbr Albeit ttgioa: O) north «t MaatdMicr; vid U) Q«rtb of U Btuec 



30 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

mans? While their rapid advance lasted up 
until the end of July, they took from us many 
guns, prisoners, and ammunition. In our 
own counter-oflFensive, we have done likewise. 
In order to compare the losses on both sides 
fairly, we must not look at a short period, but 
at the whole operation. We shall have to reck- 
on up our losses from April to July 15th, and 
those we inflicted on the Germans when we 
retook the ground previously given up. 

Now, by the 3d of August, we have taken 
back a fourth of the ground occupied by the 
Germans since April. Have we caused them 
greater losses than we ourselves have suffered ? 
It is possible of course, but improbable, and 
no reports published seem to confirm it. In 
military operations, when both sides are act- 
ing under nearly the same conditions, the 
losses in men and material are about equal, 
unless in cases where one army is completely 
demoralized, while the other remains intact. 
If the Allies exert all the power they possess 
throughout Europe, this demoraUzation will 
surely come for the German army. The sur- 
render of Bulgaria hastens considerably the 
moment, but all I wish to prove is that on 
August 3d, we had no good reason to believe 
that the German losses had been much greater 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 31 

than our own, reckoning from the beginning 
of their offensive in April, 1918. 

On the matter of losses and also on other 
questions, just after they took Chateau-Thierry 
on the 4th of June, the Frankfort Gazette, pub- 
lished the following article, which suggests 
some interesting comments: 

"Whenever our armies start a new offensive, 
the enemy press ascribes some distant objec- 
tive to our high command. In this manner, 
when our front becomes stabihzed before these 
supposed aims are reached, they can say the 
operation has failed. When we attack in Flan- 
ders, they say our object is Calais. Now that 
we are marching on the Marne, they accuse 
us of trying for Paris. 

''Neither Hindenburg nor Ludendorff wage 
a geographical war; their aim is always to 
weaken and finally to destroy the enemy's 
army. They acted on this principle in the 
east, and apply it now on the western front. 
They choose a sector and make a surprise at- 
tack, supported by superior numbers, and 
push forward until the enemy's reserves come 
up and restore the balance. During our at- 
tack the enemy losses are the greater, but 
from this on they tend to be equal. It is, there- 
fore, useless to pursue the action, and our 



32 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

positions become fixed, while we take measures 
to deal another blow where our complete prep- 
arations or superiority in numbers promise 
a fresh victory at little cost. 

"We have often dealt in this way with our 
enemies, and will do so again. The great battle 
lasted seven days, and during that time the 
enemy brought his reserves from the Channel 
and the Vosges, stripping sectors where we 
shall attack the next time, and where we shall 
gain another success like that just ended." 

These lines, like most German publications 
intended to impress opinion at home, con- 
tain some truth and some falsehood. As I 
have frequently explained, large operations of 
the German General Staff are planned to reach 
a maximum result, if luck is on their side, and 
at worst a minimum. To hide their disap- 
pointments the Germans lie when they say 
they were not trying to reach Paris or the 
Channel. When they attacked in Flanders 
and toward Amiens, they meant if they had 
the chance to push through to the sea, their 
maximum objective in this case. In the same 
way, they moved on Chateau-Thierry with 
the ultimate hope of seizing Paris. They could 
not reach these farthest points, but when we 
look at the map (page 29), must we not admit 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 33 

that they did accomplish an important part 
of the minimum results implied in the article 
from the Frankfort Gazette? 

The German offensive from April to August 
3d, of this year has not been strong enough 
to keep all the ground gained; but up to that 
date it held most of it. Even if the Germans 
were forced to yield all the territory won by 
them since April, unless they meet with an 
absolutely crushing defeat, their offensive, 
looked at as a whole, must have brought them 
important gains, if we try to look at the war 
from the point of view of the enemy, as we 
must if we wish to draw the right conclusions 
from the course of events. 

In the first place, the Teuton offensive has 
forced the Allies to strike back at fixed points, 
instead of leaving them free to attack when 
and where they choose. 

Again, in his advance the enemy has dev- 
astated large districts, at the cost of mil- 
liards to France, driving hundreds of thou- 
sands from their homes, and obliging the 
French Government to devise complicated 
and expensive defenses for Paris, and to pre- 
pare to send away a considerable part of its 
population. The German war plan includes 
this economic injury to its adversary, increased 



34 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

by the direction given to each blow; but up to 
now, this highly important point has been but 
Uttle understood among us. 

I shall be told in answer that our own opera- 
tions from April to August have caused great 
loss to the Germans in men and material. This 
question of losses needs careful consideration 
and to understand it better we should keep 
in mind the general conditions under which 
the war proceeds and which we are apt to for- 
get. 

Many among us talk of the enemy's losses 
as if we had discovered a way to make war 
without hurting ourselves, but unfortunately 
this cannot be. It is hard to realize that in 
the great offensives and counter-offensives at 
the western front lasting for weeks, even if 
the Germans lose 500,000 men and we only 
400,000, a difference of 100,000 in our favor, 
the former would still be the gainers owing 
to the capital factor in the situation which 
we leave out of account. We think of the 
Allied position as if the western front were 
a wall with comparable conditions on each 
side. Many of us believe that if the enemy 
extends his hue toward the west he gains, while 
if we push it eastward in the same proportion 
the Allies achieve a success analogous to that 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 35 

reached by the Germans. In order to see why 
this impression is not the correct one, we must 
grasp the great difference made by the fact 
that Germany is fighting in France and Bel- 
gium, while we make war on our own soil. 
Every kilometre that Germany has gained on 
the western front has brought her closer into 
our vital points, the Channel coasts and Paris. 
Meanwhile in their advance her armies reduce 
their war expenses by living on the country, 
robbing us and enriching themselves at the 
same time. On the contrary, in order to re- 
gain her invaded provinces, France spends 
milliards in projectiles, and with her own 
shells tears to pieces French towns and vil- 
lages which the Germans had not entirely de- 
stroyed. 

Are France and Germany, then, in the same 
situation.^ The Allies look too much at the 
military side of the question, without con- 
sidering economic factors which, nevertheless, 
are closely connected with the conduct of the 
war and will strongly influence the conditions 
of peace. The Allies do not realize the differ- 
ence made by the fact that the war has not 
touched Germany directly, except at the very 
first, when the Russians penetrated a small 
part of eastern Prussia. On the other hand. 



36 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

the richest provinces of France have been bled 
white, and the economic effect of this alone 
would decide in favor of Germany if the 
Allied victory should not be so complete as 
to insure compensation to France for her im- 
mense losses. The situation, therefore, is 
not all the same for both sides on the western 
front. 

There are other reasons yet more conclusive. 
In the course of an offensive followed by a 
reverse, let us assume that the Germans lose 
more men by a fourth than the Allies, but 
even this sacrifice may have its military com- 
pensations enabling the enemy to keep his 
general position nearly the same, with the 
difference of a few kilometres, while he oc- 
cupies behind his western front a great extent 
of country over which he can still fight and 
fall back indefinitely, thus weakening his ad- 
versary before his own soil can be directly 
attacked. An objector to this argument may 
urge that "we shall exhaust the Germans if 
we continue to kill 100,000 men in excess of 
our own loss, and the German retirement of 
July 15th shows that they are already short 
of reserves." This reasoning would be right 
if our calculations as to the German resources 
were well founded, but unfortunately events 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 37 

have too often falsified them as a natural re- 
sult of our mistaken premises, as I prove in 
Chapter III. Also, the German retirement 
from France and Belgium may be viewed as 
a necessary part of the great pacifist move- 
ment described in Chapter II, and a conse- 
quence of the great Entente success in the 
Balkans. Even if the Germans do lack men 
on a local front in consequence of their losses 
since July, 1918, this can only be a temporary 
condition. Before winter they can bring into 
the field the class of 1920, a contingent reck- 
oned by many Allied papers at 400,000 men. 
I consider this question in Chapter III, and 
will explain why it seems to me that this class 
will amount to much more. Finally the dis- 
organization of Russia has opened to Ger- 
many sources of new effectives from which 
she can probably draw fresh troops. For these 
various reasons, we were not justified in aflSrm- 
ing in August, 1918, that by a simple excess of 
losses inflicted on the Germans in the west 
(unless these losses surpass enormously the 
total of the Allies, of which we have as yet 
no instance) we can bring about a German 
defeat adequate to insure a complete Allied 
victory. 

Many among us do not perceive this ab- 



38 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

solutely essential point which is, nevertheless, 
easy to grasp by looking at the map (page 
14) and reading the following chapter. 

Even if our military successes had con- 
tinued and forced our enemies out of France 
and Belgium, if they had been able to keep 
control of Austria-Hungary the Germans would 
still have been victorious, because the war 
would have left them in possession of their ill- 
gotten gains and would have given them the 
economic monopoly of Central Europe and 
Russia, all enormously rich countries, while the 
Allies, on the contrary, would have come out 
of the struggle triumphant in the west, but 
reduced in population, and in such a hopeless 
financial position that they could not enforce 
conditions of peace. Within very few months 
after the signature of such a treaty, the Allies 
of western Europe would have become vassals 
of Germany. This inadmissible result could 
never have been a cause of apprehension if, 
instead of concentrating their attention on the 
western front, the Allies had kept the war map 
— that of Pangermany — ^before their eyes. For 
the last four years I have explained in every 
possible way that on the eastern side there 
were many weak points where the Allies could 
injure Germany. With the help of political 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 39 

strategy, they could prevail there in a shorter 
time, and at much less cost than by exerting 
military pressure in the west. We could only 
win a complete western victory by annihilating 
the German army. If this were possible, it 
would entail also the equal destruction of the 
Allies by the Germans. A mistake was after 
all within the bounds of possibility; it is under- 
stood at last that we must insure ourselves, 
against it by working on Pangermany's weak- 
nesses. This was the only way to destroy her 
hold on Austria-Hungary and Russia, a task 
as necessary to accomplish as the libera- 
tion of France and Belgium. This campaign 
against the causes of weakness in Pangermany 
could have been prosecuted without slacken- 
ing our efforts on the western front. It has 
even proved helpful in that region. The defeat 
of Bulgaria has besides contributed enormously 
to weaken the morale of the German soldiers 
fighting on the western front. The insurrec- 
tions organized among peoples oppressed in 
Austria-Hungary have destroyed the indis- 
pensable communications with the east, and 
the situation of the German armies in the 
west has become materially and morally 
untenable. These immense advantages will 
have their vast effects on condition that the 



40 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Allies act to the end in the most decisive 
fashion in central Europe. 



* 



The mistaken estimate of facts which I 
pointed out is largely produced by German 
influence, which has tended to stupefy public 
opinion for the last four years. I dwell on 
these mistakes because I am convinced that 
they form a state of mind in Allied countries 
which widens the distance between us and real 
victory. Throughout history an exact knowl- 
edge of facts has brought success, not illusions, 
and these erroneous views expose us at this 
moment to these serious dangers. 

1. Our misinterpretations play the game of 
the pacifist and the Bolshevist parties among 
us. To take the most favorable hypothesis, 
if the German retirement lasts for weeks, if 
France and Belgium are completly evacuated, 
a large part of our public will claim the vic- 
tory, as, indeed, it has already begun to do, 
and the pacifists and Bolshevists will say: ''If 
we are the victors, you have no right not to 
make peace." What answer is there to their 
argument.^ But if we treat with Germany 
without taking the most extraordinary pre- 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 41 

cautions, it will mean our ruin and leave her 
dominant in Russia. 

2. Teuton propagandists tell the Allies that 
Germany is ruined and starving; that her 
man-power is exhausted and that our west- 
ern victories are decisive. This produces the 
mistaken views of which I speak, raising il- 
lusions in the public mind which contribute 
to the success of the great pacifist offensive 
which Germany continues obstinately, and of 
which I shall unmask the reasons in the fol- 
lowing chapter. As a preliminary it was need- 
ful to show the atmosphere of false ideas 
caused by German propaganda, which fur- 
nishes the medium in which these dangerous 
intrigues can act with success. 



III. 

For the first time in history war has shown 
this most singular characteristic of alternately 
prosecuting military and peace offensives, some- 
times even both together. We must bear in 
mind that the pacifist advances are an in- 
tegral part of war technic and as such are all 
launched by the German Government. The 
Allies have followed the old rules and act on 
strategic military lines, but the Berlin General 



42 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Staff used political strategy also; this is more 
complicated and difficult and demands wide and 
precise information, but to succeed it utilizes 
all possible factors, especially the enemy's 
psychology, his lack of outside information, and 
his imperfect comprehension of the nature of 
a modern victory where economic consequences 
bring about results as far-reaching as miUtary 
operations themselves. 

* 

We often hear it said among the Allies that 
"The invasion of Belgium brought England 
into the war, and America entered because of 
the sinking of the Lusitania, The German 
psychology is all wrong ! " 

Certainly, the Germans have committed 
psychological faults; I should be the last to 
contradict it, for I have had only too much 
experience of their lack of tact, but if they 
have made blunders of this sort it would be 
a mistake to suppose that they are always at 
fault. 

In truth, the German has a peculiar psy- 
chology which has grown out of slow and pa- 
tient observation of foreign nations. It is 
based on exact information, and from it he 
draws immense results. His minute knowledge 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 43 

of those best able to act strongly on the Rus- 
sian intellectual proletariat led to great con- 
sequences. As soon as the revolution broke 
out, Lenine was hurried from Switzerland to 
Russia in a special train, as the man fitted 
to lead the proletariat toward Bolshevist Pan- 
germanism. This utilization of Lenine was 
undoubtedly good psychology. Germans 
understand that some French and EngHsh 
socialists are surprisingly ignorant of geo- 
graphical, ethnographical, and economic ques- 
tions, and that they love fine words and 
sonorous phrases. The Boches made dexter- 
ous use of this state of mind when they sug- 
gested the formula, "Peace without indemni- 
ties or annexations," which penetrated to the 
Alhed socialists through their Russian brethren. 
This formula, voted by the Reichstag, July 
19th, 1917, was a psychological manoeuvre, as 
we see by an article in the Germania, quoted 
by the Paris Temps, April 18th of the same 
year. This article says cynically: ''The July 
resolution was a question of tactics, which 
tends to strengthen the Bolshevist power and 
increase the longing for peace in the east. 
These tactics are now laid aside, and our pres- 
ent object is to reach a victorious peace in 
the west by force of arms." 



44 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Another prominent psychological manoeuvre 
consists in utilizing the bUnd optimism of the 
Allies by means of neutral newspaper propa- 
ganda. Contrary to their hopes, force of arms 
was not enough to impose a German peace in 
the west, chiefly owing to the size and value 
of the American reinforcements; now, in order 
to deceive the AUies and trap them into peace 
negotiations without complete victory, we 
see the Berlin government resort to an astute 
combination embracing many psychological 
elements. 

Let us admit the truth; the Germans are 
capable of the sort of psychology which grows 
out of exact information and is adapted to 
war aims as they are seen in Berlin. The real 
brain of the German General Staff is General 
Ludendorff, who inspired and moulded the 
pacifist offensives as well as the military cam- 
paigns. These offensives proceeded in many 
ways; through the German press, which, like 
a Prussian soldier, obeys the suggestions of 
the high command, or through neutral jour- 
nals. Sometimes a man Uke Hertling dropped 
a phrase of double meaning, or a word came 
through an Austrian intermediary hke Burian 
or Czernin. Sometimes agents from Bul- 
garia (during a very long period), Turkey, 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 45 

or Austria entrapped the Allied emissaries in 
Switzerland, or a bait was ofiPered to the Vati- 
can, which simply swallowed it. 

All these pacifist offensives under any form 
start from the General Staff in Berlin. The 
part played by this organization in pacifist 
plans, which at first sight seem so different 
from military offensives, ought not to surprise 
us. Those who really understand Germany — 
unfortunately too few — ^know well that the 
Reichstag has no real power in the empire, 
and that the force which guides German policy, 
even in time of peace, is this formidable in- 
tellectual machine, on which rests the fate 
of the HohenzoUerns and of Prussian mili- 
tarism. 

The oflBcers who compose the General Staff 
are carefully selected. They not only control 
military affairs, as we know, but there are 
among them experts on all questions. These 
officers are certainly accomplices in a great 
scheme of robbery, but we shall be wide of 
the truth if we do not understand that they 
are men not only well versed in military sub- 
jects, but also in applied sciences; geography, 
ethnography, political economy and national 
psychology. This stupendous organization is 
so old, so well supplied with technical inf orma- 



46 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

tion brought up-to-date, that the General 
StafI of BerUn is able to pursue a political 
strategy specially adapted to the conditions 
of each region. This strategy often misleads 
the Allies because they were even less prepared 
for the intellectual conduct of the war than 
they were in a material sense. 

When one looks at the German General 
Staff as a whole, it is easy to see that it initiates 
pacifist offensives, and this is still more clearly 
realized when we note the strong pressure 
these offensives exert on the conduct of the 
war, and the many technical objectives of 
a particular sort at which they invariably 
aim. 

The first object of a German pacifist offen- 
sive has been to hide the extent of the gigantic 
Pangermanist plan from the Allies. To carry 
this out, the General Staff knew that it should 
conquer its many adversaries in succession, 
employing the classical tactics of the Horatii 
against the Curiatii, that is to say, beating 
them one after the other. 

To reach this end it resolved to utilize the 
undoubted ignorance of the Pangerman plan 
which the Allies had shown in the first years 
of the war, so as to persuade them that each 
large military operation against Russia, Serbia, 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 47 

or Roumania, would be the last. This is why 
newspaper articles through Holland and 
Switzerland inspired by the Berlin General 
Staff frequently gave out that Germany was 
exhausted, that she had enough of it, and that 
she lacked food or munitions to carry on the 
struggle. As these items were credulously 
quoted, whenever desired, by many Allied 
papers, during the first three years of the war, 
a large part of public opinion in France and 
England has been convinced that the war 
would be over in three months, and this state 
of mind has made it easily possible for the 
Germans to carry out successive military of- 
fensives in due order. The pacifist offensive 
is, therefore, a way of pursuing a military 
offensive. 

Secondly, the German pacifist offensives, 
with their suggestion of an early peace, have 
made it possible for the General Staff to or- 
ganize Central Pangermany, that is to say, 
to put Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Tur- 
key in a position to support a long war. 
Further, these three countries, particularly 
Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, were in every 
way the weak strategic points of the Central 
Powers. Berlin had therefore a strong motive 
to prevent the Allies from acting in these re- 



48 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

gions. This third object has been attained 
for four years by pacifist propaganda, through 
agents in Switzerland, who persuaded the Al- 
lies that Turkey, Bulgaria, or Austria-Hungary 
desired to conclude a separate peace with 
them. 

Fourthly, the mission of the German pacifist 
oflFensives was to act on the pacifist groups in 
all Entente countries. These consist often of 
good people honestly desirous of putting an 
end to the frightful conflict, but these worthy 
folks are profoundly ignorant of technical 
problems, and know next to nothing about 
Germany, Austria-Hungary, or the Balkans, 
where most of them have never set foot. The 
result is these pacifists seize on the smallest 
incident which seems favorable to their cause, 
and which is really a Boche pitfall. They say: 
'"Peace is possible, we should look into it, 
and negotiate." This is what they said in 
1917, at the time of the interminable discus- 
sions on the Stockholm conference, which con- 
tributed greatly to consolidate the Bolsheviks, 
and so disintegrate Russia. This they repeated 
when in July, 1917, the Reichstag voted for 
"Peace without annexations or indemnities," 
a formula hiding the most treacherous ma- 
noeuvres, as we have seen in the article from 



HOW THE GERMANS DECEIVE 49 

Germania above quoted. They said the same 
thing when the Emperor of Austria pub- 
lished his letters about Alsace-Lorraine at the 
very moment that his troops invaded southern 
Russia. The effect of this persistent credulity 
on the part of the Entente pacifists has been 
that for the last two years particularly, the 
Allied governments have lost precious time in 
discussing incidents which would not have oc- 
cupied them five minutes if they had possessed 
exact information, as subsequent events have 
shown in every case. The general result from 
these efforts has been that, dragged in all di- 
rections by contradictory opinions, the Allied 
governments could not make the best use of 
the forces of the Entente, which was exactly 
what the Berlin General Staff wished to bring 
about by its pacifist offensives. 

Now that the war is at last entering on its 
decisive phase, now that the number and 
bravery of American troops obliges the Ger- 
mans to admit that they were wrong as to 
the value of help sent from the United States, 
and forces them to renounce the hope of a 
speedy and brilliant victory, while the pro- 
longed struggle has produced an unprecedented 
financial condition in the west, of the most se- 
rious importance, the great pacifist manoeuvre 



50 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

has for its first object to stop hostilities before 
the invasion of Germany. 

In the conduct of the war the German Gen- 
eral Staff has already shown a high order of 
imagination: asphyxiating gas, for example, 
on the material side, Russia destroyed by 
pacifism on the intellectual. But the blow 
which they sought to make successful ex- 
ceeded all the others in audacity, in surprise, 
and in psychological ingenuity. They in- 
tended to compass the final defeat of the Allies 
by means which I shall lay bare in the next 
chapter, and they sought to make them ac- 
cept this defeat through a well-advised camou- 
flage hiding it under an apparent military 
victory. 

The wide reverberations of the Bulgarian 
defeat have come to discredit this plan, but 
nevertheless it still has its dangers, for with 
the help of the Allied pacifists the Boches are 
making persistent efforts to prevent at any 
price the invasion of Germany. 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW THE GERMANS, IF THEY SECURE AN ARMIS- 
TICE, COUNT UPON CARRYING OFF THE VIC- 
TORY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE ECONOMIC 
CONDITION CREATED IN EUROPE BY FOUR 
YEARS OF WAR. 

I. Germany's war profits form the chief basis of the pacifist 

manoeuvres. 
n. The fact that the circulation of paper currency in Ger- 
many is largely measured by the produce of her gigan- 
tic thefts, while, on the other hand, that of the Allies 
depends on their complete victory, constitutes the 
second base of German schemes. 

in. If circumstances make it feasible, the Alsace-Lorraine 
trick will be tried in order to enter on the practical 
realization of German plans by dividing the Allies, 
and leading France to "peace talk" before a complete 
victory. 

rV. Why the Germans believe that if the Allies are led into 
"peace talk" before achieving a full grasp of the Eu- 
ropean situation which assures their victory, their 
financial ruin will ensue. This without more great 
battles would be enough to bring about the final suc- 
cess of Germany. 

As Berlin sees it, the economic situation 
caused by four years of conflict, will make it 
possible for Germany to win the war on the 
sole condition that the Allies, even if victorious, 
confine their exertions to the western front — 

51 



52 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

that of France and Belgium — and grant to Ger- 
many an armistice not followed by a deep 
invasion of her territory. 

The economic situation of the Allies, does 
indeed differ so materially from that of Ger- 
many that the General Staff can try something 
quite new in the way of pacifist machinations. 
These will be all the more dangerous because 
they will gain the advantage of a surprise, as 
the close connection between the economic 
position of the west of Europe and the Allies' 
success in the war is little understood. Ger- 
man blows owe most of their effect to surprise; 
therefore, if the conditions necessary to the 
realization of the policy of Berlin were made 
known beforehand to the great Entente public, 
it would render much of this policy abortive. 

Germany wants to make a western Brest- 
Litovsk treaty. This treaty was really an 
operation of strategic policy in two acts. First 
act. Peace in appearance, which on account of 
the nervous tension resulting from an excep- 
tionally long and cruel war is enough to shake 
the morale of the enemy. Second act. Re- 
sumption of hostilities under relatively easy 
conditions, the spirit of the adversary being 
once broken. We now see clearly that Ger- 
many overthrew Russia, without the need of 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 53 

resorting to large military operations because 
the treaty of Brest-Litovsk had destroyed the 
Russian armies. Now that they see where 
"peace" with Germany has led them many 
Russians are in revolt, but the lack of material 
means weakens their rebellion, and it is now 
certain that the Germans, through the Bolshe- 
vists, can act directly on Russia as far as Si- 
beria. A step analogous to that at Brest- 
Litovsk would enable Germany to gain the war 
easily and entirely, even if she were previously 
forced out of France and Belgium by military 
means. This step could be taken by utilizing 
this time the particular economic condition of 
western Europe, favored by illusions enter- 
tained by a section of the Allied public, as I 
have shown in the preceding chapter. 

In order to throw into relief the effects of 
a western Brest-Litovsk, we will take in turn 
the essential constituents of the German 
manoeuvre, viz.: 

1st. The profits of the war to Germany. 

2d. The fact that the circulation of paper 
currency in Germany is guaranteed by the 
produce of her thefts. 

3d. The Alsace-Lorraine trick. 



54 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

I. 

I have already written on the subject of 
Germany's profits from the war, but in order 
to make her pacifist manoeuvres clear I will 
once more show what she has gained by her 
aggressions. She has long labored with a view 
to keeping the fruit of her gigantic thefts after 
the conclusion of peace. In order to hide them 
as much as possible, she uses neutral papers 
to spread abroad the idea that Germany is 
ruined by the war. This is what most of the 
Allies believe, as they think, on just grounds. 
When they read in the Swiss papers that the 
mark has depreciated 45 per cent, and the 
franc only 20 per cent, they think this indicates 
the proportion in which France and Germany 
are touched financially by the war. But such 
is not the fact. The German rate falls, first 
because a general and well-founded feeling 
exists that Germany will be beaten. This can 
only come about if the Allies fight to the 
end with all the resources at their command, 
and if the United States throw their whole 
weight into the scale. Secondly, and above 
all, it is because Germany is blockaded, and 
has no exports, consequently she is paid 
nothing from the outside and must settle in 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 55 

gold for all that comes to her from neutrals. 
The result is her foreign credit shrinks and 
causes the German rate to fall. But this posi- 
tion of Germany on the outside does not at 
all affect her credit at home. This we never 
hear spoken of, but it is very important and 
increased with every new seizure of enemy 
territory. Each of these operations yielded 
Germany much more than they cost. For 
instance, when she laid hands on Belgium after 
long premeditation, it was because of the ex- 
traordinary wealth of that unhappy country, 
from which the Berlin government has drawn 
sums much greater than the expense of the 
conquest. The same is true of German seizures 
in northern France, Serbia, Roumania, Rus- 
sia, etc., which were carried out on a paying 
basis, according to the best Boche traditions. 
It is therefore untrue to say, as the Allies often 
do without having really looked into it, that 
Germany is ruined by the war. In the jQrst 
place, this is contrary to fact, as I shall show, 
and again if we believe this we play into the 
Boche hands by believing that Germany can 
never repair the harm she has done, or restore 
the value of all that she has stolen. 

The war has been much less costly to Ger- 
many than to the Allies, because of her long 



56 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

preparation and her thefts in all directions, 
as well as for the reason that the Teuton armies 
live on their enemies' country. On the other 
hand, the Allies were obliged to improvise the 
enormous material required in great haste, 
and they pay their bills honestly. 

The proof of this is that in three years of 
war the cost to Germany is 1,612 francs per 
head, 608 francs less than in France. The 
latter has spent 2,220 per head, 38 per cent 
more than in Germany. Therefore, if we made 
peace according to the formula "Peace with- 
out indemnities," it would lead to an unheard- 
of injustice. Every peace-loving Frenchman 
would have to bear a financial burden a third 
heavier than that of a faithful servant of the 
Kaiser, who wished for war. If this difference 
in war expenditures continues, it will be enough 
to ruin France. Clearly, if the Frenchman has 
to support a weight 38 per cent heavier, he 
will have to yield before the German. The 
latter will be saved, while his adversaries suc- 
cumb, leaving him to gather in the spoils. 

On the whole, at the end of the third year 
of the war, the Allies had spent at least 144 
milliards of francs more than the Central Em- 
pires. During the fourth year this figure has 
increased considerably on account of the im- 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 57 

mense expenditure of the United States, which 
in August, 1918, amounted to 50 milHons of 
dollars a day. 

There are still worse economic consequences 
to be feared from the fact that if the existing 
situation continues in eastern Europe, Ger- 
many will be secure now and in future of huge 
profits much greater than her war expenses, 
while the Allies will stagger for many years 
under crushing financial burdens. 

Germany's war-profits, as they appeared he- 
fore the victory of the Allies over Bulgaria (Oc- 
tober, 1918) were: 

1st. The value of plunder in occupied coun- 
tries, Serbia, Roumania, Russia, Belgium, and 
France (materials of war, foodstuffs, raw ma- 
terial, industrial plants, furniture, objects of 
art, war contributions, bonds, securities, etc.). 

2d. The accomplishment of the Hamburg- 
Persian GuK plan, secured by Pangerman 
mortgages, loans made by Germany to Aus- 
tria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. These 
loans are only made on paper, and have cost 
Germany nothing, but they give her the great 
advantage of entire economic control over 
her Allies, the three Central Powers. 

3d. The treaty signed by Turkey at Berlin, 
11th of January, 1917, gives Germany a mo- 



58 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

nopoly in the Turkish Empire, a country enor- 
mously rich in agricultural and mineral re- 
sources, of which she has begun already to 
take advantage. 

4th. The realization of economic Panger- 
many, in other words, the orderly development 
on a large scale of all its productions, mineral, 
vegetable, animal, and industrial (see map, 
page 14), transported through a network of 
canals at the least possible cost. The Ger- 
mans could thus pay large wages to their own 
workmen, while the cost price would be so 
much lowered in all departments of produc- 
tion that they could undersell everywhere in 
Europe, and perhaps all over the world. 

5th. The realization of military Panger- 
many. This guarantees the permanence of 
economic Pangermany, and through it Berlin 
controls all its forces (about 30 millions of 
soldiers) occupying Antwerp, Riga, Trieste, 
Cattaro, the Ottoman straits, the eastern 
Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. Never 
before on earth has there been so vast a 
strategic whole in the hands of a single power. 

6th. The exploiting monopoly in European 
and Asiatic Russia, great regions with in- 
finitely rich opportunities. 

7th. The actual substitution of German 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 59 

credit for that of the AlHes in Russia and the 
east represents tens of milliards. 

Now, in four years of war, Germany has 
spent about 140 milliards of marks. The sum 
of these seven war-profits shows a difference 
in her favor of hundreds of milliards, as we 
see without difficulty. 

The war profits of Germany are therefore 
much greater than her war expenses; this is 
contrary to the opinion of many among the 
Allies, but it is the fact that the war is exceed- 
ingly profitable to the Germans, and for this 
reason their government directs it particularly 
from the economic standpoint. Without 
doubt the surrender of Bulgaria has begun 
to get back some of the oriental profits of 
Germany, but all these may be destroyed. 
Also it is necessary for the Allies to complete 
thoroughly their victory in the east, which 
would have the practical effect of loosening 
the hold of Germany on Russia. Besides, 
there would remain to the Germans all the 
booty that they have stolen, and that it is 
our business to make them restore. 

The war as waged by the German people 
is essentially predatory; it is the largest pirat- 
ical enterprise known in history, and has been 
carefully planned for years. 



60 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Long before the war, the Berlin government 
maintained a secret propaganda to convince 
the people that if Greater Germany became 
an accomplished fact it would materially add 
to the prosperity of the working classes. It 
was this hope of material and personal ad- 
vantages to be gained from economic Pan- 
germany that caused the great majority of 
the socialists to stand by the Kaiser and his 
General Staff. The methods of obtaining 
these rich prizes, were clearly thought out 
beforehand; as an example read the remark 
of Baron von Wangenheim, German ambas- 
sador at Constantinople, to M. Morgenthau: 
*' Remember that this time we will make war 
without mercy. . . . We will carry off to 
Berlin all the French art treasures which be- 
long to the state." This principle has been 
applied wherever possible, and even private 
property has not been respected. The booty 
brought in by the war has exceeded all expec- 
tations, as the Germans themselves admit, 
though it is the policy of their government 
to conceal the truth as much as possible from 
the outside world. 

L'Homme Libre of February 16th, 1918, 
quotes from the January number of Die Hilfe, 
a review by Frederic Naumann, the man of 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 61 

Mitteleuropa. Here we can read an avowal 
which should be known to every Allied citizen: 

"The war in general was looked upon as a 
piece of good luck, so much so that a business 
man in good standing did not hesitate to say 
that 'a man who does not make money out 
of this war does not deserve it.'" 

This particular Boche ought to be satisfied, 
for his compatriots have been worthy of the 
struggle they provoked, and have enriched 
themselves beyond measure according to their 
deliberate plans. 

The truth which the foregoing facts are 
meant to impress on the American mind is 
that, since Germany has made enormous war- 
profits, the European AUies have undergone 
unprecedented losses without any compensa- 
tion. Their economic position is therefore 
greatly inferior to that of Germany, but un- 
fortunately this state of things is but little 
known. It must be seriously considered, how- 
ever, before laying down the conditions of a 
peace which shall bring restoration and jus- 
tice to the world. 

Great losses for the Allies, great gains for 
Germany — this, then, is the situation which 
lies at the root of her pacifist plan. 



62 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

II. 

The financial reverberations of this war will 
have deep and lasting results to every citizen 
of the belligerent countries, without exception. 
Each American has therefore a direct personal 
interest in understanding a state of things 
which will affect him strongly for good or evil. 
As we have seen, Germany is so far the only 
one of the belligerents whose gains by the 
war much exceed her expenditures; this is 
the first thing we must grasp if we would 
understand the war situation. The second is 
that this enrichment of Germany, dishonestly 
acquired, but real none the less, has placed 
her in so favorable an economic position that, 
even if the Allies drive her out of France and 
Belgium, she can still discuss peace terms with 
advantage. This is hard to understand, but 
is elucidated by the following considerations: 

It is well known that without exception all 
the belligerents have much extended their 
fiduciary circulation, at present represented 
by a large issue of bank paper and currency. 
This extension is so great that the specie re- 
serves have not been increased in the same 
proportion, so that with each new issue of 
paper the gold and silver guaranty shrinks 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 63 

equally. There are even countries where the 
specie reserve is much less than it was in 
1914, while paper money has much increased. 
The following table, taken from the figures of 
the circular of the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt 
of Zurich, May 31st, 1918, gives a review 
of the situation from the end of June, 1914, 
to the end of April, 1918; for Germany in 
millions of marks, for Austria-Hungary in 
millions of crowns, for France in millions of 
francs, and for England in millions of pounds 
sterling. 



Country 


Currency 


Specie Reserve 


Increase or shrink- 
age from end of 

June, 1914, to end 
of April, 1918 




End of 
June 
1914 


End of 
April 
1918 


End of 
June 
1914 


End of 
April 
1918 


Specie 


Paper 


Germany 

Austria-Hungary 
France 


2,597 

2,325 
6,051 
29.78 


19,225 
18,440 
26,773 
287.50 


1,631 

1,609 
4,697 
40.08 


2,465 

382 

5,636 

89.86 


834 

-1,227 

939 

49.78 


16,628 
16,115 
20,682 


England 


257.72 



This table shows that Austria's specie re- 
serve has shrunk to the enormous extent of 
1,227 millions of crowns in the period that 
her paper increased by 16 milliards, and it is 
nearly certain that this 1,227 millions of crowns 
were handed over to Germany as security for 



64 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

the heavy loans made by Berlin to Vienna to 
carry on the war, an indication of the abso- 
lutely dependent condition of the latter. 

If the principal ally of Germany is brought 
to such a pass as this, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that the state of the currency in Bulgaria 
and Turkey and of their finances is even 
worse. There can be no doubt these allies 
of Germany, considered as states, are ruined 
by the war, for the immense inflation of their 
paper money added to war expenses and the 
huge debts owed to Berlin, weaken them eco- 
nomically. But it is well to observe that the 
ruin of friendly states does no harm to Ger- 
many; on the contrary, if the Allied troops 
do not materially reorganize central Europe 
on an absolutely new basis, Germany profits 
by it, for the poverty of the governments of 
Vienna, Sofia, and Constantinople puts them 
completely in the power of Berlin, which dic- 
tates all the combinations leading to the sup- 
port of Pangermany, and dominates central 
Europe and the Ottoman Empire. 

England has more than doubled her gold 
reserve, but her output of paper money and 
Bank of England notes, according to the figures 
of the Swiss Bank above quoted, have in- 
creased in round numbers from 30 to 287 mil- 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 65 

lions of pounds sterling, that is to say, 9 times 
more than at the outbreak of the war. 

As for France, as she is the pivot of the coali- 
tion, and her richest territory is invaded, the 
war has caused her nothing but loss. Her 
specie reserve has indeed increased by nearly 
a milhard, but of the 5.636 milliards which 
made up this reserve in gold and silver at the 
end of April, 1918, 2 milliards were set aside 
as security for debts contracted in foreign 
countries, while the increase at this date of 
notes of the Bank of France exceeded 20 mil- 
liards. 

We can see by the above table that the 
bank paper of the European belligerents is 
nowhere suflSciently secured by gold reserves; 
therefore the value of this paper depends on 
victory, which will affect profoundly the credit 
of the various states, and, consequently, the 
money issued by them. In practice, then, 
when peace is concluded it will be then that 
the notes and paper money of all the countries 
in Europe will show their strength or weak- 
ness, and very shortly too, for then the situa- 
tion in which each one is left by the war will 
stand out clearly. 

From now on, we can see a result brought 
about by the war, most unjust but none the 



66 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

less certain: when we come to discuss con- 
ditions of peace Germany will be in a much 
more advantageous position than the other 
belligerents because her fiduciary circulation 
will be sounder, consequently her issue of bank- 
notes more secure. While France has con- 
tracted enormous foreign debts to buy large 
amounts of raw material for manufactures 
and food necessary to her population, the 
Allied blockade, curiously enough, has been 
of service to Germany. She could buy nothing 
outside, and therefore could not run in debt, 
but was forced to supply her needs either by 
substitutes or products of Pangermany. These 
products, as a rule, cost her nothing because 
they were simply stolen from invaded coun- 
tries: food, crops, metals, coal, etc. It stands 
to reason that a shell made of stolen French 
iron, with stolen Belgian coal, costs Germany 
less than a shell costs the French Government, 
which is made with coal bought in England 
and steel from the United States. This ex- 
ample might be multiplied indefinitely, but 
it serves to explain how Germany makes war 
more cheaply than the Allies, and why she 
has kept her money at home, while that of 
France is sent abroad. 

The circulation of bank-notes of the Ger- 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 67 

man Empire had increased during the war by 
16,628 millions of marks at the end of April, 
1918. At this date, the specie guarantee of 
these notes was 2,465 millions of marks. This 
was not enough to secure about 20 milliards 
of notes, a figure which includes those issued 
before the war; observe, therefore, that for 
special reasons this considerable increase in 
bank-notes does not cause as great risk and 
inconvenience to Germany as to other coun- 
tries; this is a point not before touched upon, 
but very necessary to consider. In point of 
fact, the bank-notes of the empire are not 
only secured by the government reserve in 
gold and silver but by the material profits 
Germany has gained by the war. These are 
of different kinds, and consist of money taken 
from Belgium, France, Serbia, Roumania, or 
Russia, of which the government of Berlin 
is careful to say nothing. Other values are 
not represented by gold and silver, precisely 
because these are a purchasing medium. The 
immense war material and the ships which 
the Germans took from Russia, the rolling- 
stock of railways everywhere seized by them, re- 
present milliards. Again, colonial monopolies 
cost millions to acquire, which were paid by 
great companies hoping to grow rich by de- 



68 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

veloping such territories. The war has given 
to Germany the economic control perhaps of 
the Balkans and of the Turkish Empire, but 
certainly of Russia, all rich countries which 
she is already opening up, and where, if she 
can maintain her hold, she can realize a profit 
of many milliards on a relatively small out- 
lay, for this monopoly cost her only what 
she has paid in war expenditures — little com- 
pared with the stupendous results obtained. 
It is obvious that the value of all this loot is 
infinitely greater than the 20 milliards of notes 
issued by the German Bank, even if one adds 
about 84 milliards of marks borrowed in Ger- 
many up to July 1st, 1918. The Germans 
have long been led by their government propa- 
ganda to look upon war as a ''get-rich-quick" 
scheme; they feel, therefore, that the war 
gains constitute an additional security for 
the credit of the empire. The result is that, 
within their own borders, and because Ger- 
mans believe firmly that their conquests will 
be permanent, particularly those in the east, 
government loans and the circulation of paper 
currency are thought safer than ever, resting, 
as they do, on two firm supports; first, the 
specie reserve, and second, the immense wealth 
gained by the war. Certainly the most recent 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 69 

events compel the Germans to give up a 
notable part of their gains, but those which 
remain are yet so great that Germany is still, 
in spite of everything, in an advantageous situ- 
ation to discuss peace. 

England, Italy, and France have had to 
increase their paper money enormously over 
peace-times without adding to their security 
proportionally; there is necessarily, there- 
fore, a wide diflference between the economic 
position of Germany and that of the Allies 
not understood among us, but which the Ger- 
mans comprehend perfectly. L'Homme En- 
chaine quotes from an article in the Rhine 
and Westphalia Gazette, August 24th, 1917: 
"Every milliard extorted from Belgium, 
France, or Serbia is just so much gain to us 
and loss to the enemy." 

Germany tries to draw advantage from 
this difference by peace parley and armistice 
before the Allies can completely reverse the 
situation in central Europe and force her to 
disgorge her prey, dishonestly come by, but 
valuable as security for her bank issues. 
Berlin will endeavor to lead the Allies into 
premature peace negotiations, in order that 
their swift economic downfall, resulting from 
the difference of security of the German bank- 



70 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

notes and that of the bank-notes of the Euro- 
pean Entente Allies may suffice to secure to 
Germany a real victory, not by military means, 
but by the ruin of her adversaries at the mo- 
ment when they believe themselves victorious 
on the strength of a brilliant success without 
taking into account the economic diversities. 



III. 

Let us try now to find out how the astute 
government of Berlin makes use of differences 
in economic conditions which four years of 
war have made between her and the Allies. 

This difference, as already shown, has two 
notable characteristics : 

1st. Germany has gained and the Allies lost 
largely by the war. 

2d. The German circulation of paper money 
is safely secured by the booty she has seized, 
and her commercial monopolies in the east, 
especially in Russia. The security of the 
Allies, on the contrary, depends on a victory 
thorough enough to force Germany to restore 
what she has stolen, and repair the profound 
injuries her aggression has wrought on Europe. 

The German plan will succeed only if the 
Allies are surprised and can be induced to 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 71 

parley without full comprehension of their 
precarious financial position, outlined above. 
They must comprehend not the western situa- 
tion only, with a view to victory, but all Eu- 
rope as the sole method of forcing Germany 
to relinquish completely her eastern gains, 
which form the chief basis of her war profits. 
Berlin counts on the Alsace-Lorraine trick 
to bring the Allies into peace negotiations 
before the time. I predicted this two years 
ago, but since then several Austrian or German 
personalities have baited the hook with such 
assurances as *'the Alsace-Lorraine question 
is the sole obstacle to peace." The letter 
written by the Emperor of Austria as to French 
rights in Alsace-Lorraine was part of the same 
plot, which has been taken up again recently. 
According to the paper La Suisse of July 30th, 
1918, "'the German people are willing to 
cede Alsace-Lorraine, in order to make peace 
before it is too late." The mass of the French 
nation is ready to thwart this Boche manoeuvre, 
but Americans should know that there are 
groups of Frenchmen who would let themselves 
be deceived in all good faith, and the German 
General Staff has learned by experience in 
Russia and Caporetto that in countries worn 
out by a long and cruel strain one may sue- 



72 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

ceed by acting on a relatively small number 
among civilians or in the army. 

There are three groups in France who may 
be taken in by the Alsace-Lorraine trick: 
First, those who only wish to thrust the in- 
vader from the soil of France. These do not 
look at the war in Europe as a whole, nor do 
they at all understand that France would be 
irretrievably ruined if Germany retained con- 
trol of central Europe and her eastern war 
gains. 

The second group is composed of well-mean- 
ing people also, but who fix their eyes on 
Alsace-Lorraine, forgetting the vital impor- 
tance of the money questions raised by the 
war. If after four years of exhausting struggle 
an undoubted military success should force the 
Germans back, and oblige them to restore 
Alsace-Lorraine, many among this group would 
think us wrong to lose the opportunity to put 
an end to such carnage. 

Finally the third group, the smallest but 
the most dangerous because it makes the 
most noise, composed of peace-at-any-price 
members and a few very active French Bol- 
sheviks. These two sets of people have not 
dwelt on the restoration to France of her lost 
provinces, but they would eagerly accept sug- 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 73 

gestions coming from Germany, as they are 
in agreement with her action. We cannot 
doubt this when we read a demand that "no 
peace proposition should be rejected, no matter 
what its source" (see Le Temps, June 28th, 
1918). This demand was contained in a letter 
dated June, 1918, addressed to the French Par- 
liament by the Confederation Generale du Tra- 
vail, the only large union in France, but which 
really represents a small number of French 
workers. This state of mind is, moreover, that 
of some Socialist deputies, careless of realities 
to such a degree that they have even declared 
that the war map means nothing. 

A part at least of the French population 
could be influenced by these pushing groups, 
ready to listen to "peace proposals from any- 
where," even from Germans, whose word is 
worthless, and without waiting till the mili- 
tary situation advances far enough to force 
Germany to keep her engagements toward 
oppressed peoples, and indemnify France for 
her stupendous losses. 

On the other hand, we should completely 
misapprehend the Germans if we supposed 
that after their victories and seizures of three- 
quarters of Europe and part of Asia they 
mean to yield Alsace-Lorraine permanently 



74 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

to France. They will probably use Alsace- 
Lorraine as a bone of contention among the 
Allies, to tempt the French to a premature 
peace talk, which will destroy their union 
and morale. This result obtained, they will 
say: "We will not restore Alsace-Lorraine 
to you, for you are ruined and unable to take 
it." All of German tactics is contained in this 
sentence from the Frankfort Gazette, December, 
1916, ''Negotiation does not mean renuncia- 
tion." 

Even if it were true that Germany might 
be disposed to return for the moment Alsace- 
Lorraine to France, France would be incapable 
of holding it if Greater Germany still con- 
trolled Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, and 
Turkey, a group strong politically and com- 
mercially, with 30 millions of soldiers under 
the orders of Berlin. 

The map here inserted and the accompany- 
ing table shows Alsace-Lorraine restored to 
France and Central Pangermany, so that 
we can see clearly why the former would be 
too weak to keep her provinces under such 
circumstances. According to the figures of 
1914, without counting men killed in the war, 
France, including Alsace-Lorraine, could raise 
at the outside an army of 8,300,000 men, while 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 75 




76 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Pangermany would have nearly 22 million 
more. France, however, could not keep up 
her army on account of the ruin brought her 
by the war, while Germany would flourish on 
the fruits of her vast robberies. These sup- 
positions show that the underlying problem of 
the war which touches us all is not the ques- 
tion of Alsace-Lorraine, but that of Central 
Pangermany, the foundation of Prussian mili- 
tarism, which has threatened the entire world. 
No, neither France nor the Allies are fighting 
for Alsace-Lorraine — ^part of a great whole — 
they are fighting for the triumph of peaceful 
democracy, and this implies the necessity of 
setting free the peoples enslaved by Germany 
and her allies. Undoubtedly, Alsace-Lorraine 
has a right to freedom; she is a symbol of op- 
pressed peoples, but only a symbol, for her 
population is a small part of those enslaved. 
True, in 1871, 1,500,000 Frenchmen were torn 
from their country, against their will; but in 
central and eastern Europe, there are now close 
to 100 millions of Slavs, Latins, and Semites 
who are reduced to a frightful slavery by the 
pro-Germans. Their servitude is an obstacle 
to the establishment of democracy, and so is 
that of Alsace-Lorraine. Our map, then, shows 
us that the fate of the latter depends upon 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 77 

the overthrow of Central Pangermany, which 
will put an end to the Prussian military system. 
Pangermany can be permanently destroyed 
only by the liberation of the people she op- 
presses; we can therefore say justly that the 
complete freedom of the Poles, Czechs, Jugo- 
slavs, Roumanians, etc., is the first and un- 
avoidable condition on which Alsace-Lorraine 
can be lastingly restored to France. 

It is possible that some ill-informed groups 
in France may drift toward the Alsace-Lor- 
raine snag; we should therefore guard against 
it, and we have everything needful to this 
end. 

The restoration of Alsace-Lorraine depends 
on an Allied victory which will reconstruct 
Europe on the principle of nationalities; we 
must therefore set on foot the necessary propa- 
ganda to instruct those in France who have 
not yet grasped this fact. America has begun 
this propaganda in the most convincing way, 
for the spectacle of masses of soldiers from 
the United States fighting with enthusiasm 
on French soil gives the greatest imaginable 
encouragement to war-weary men, and makes 
them feel anew that no stop is possible before 
the war is brought to a righteous conclusion. 
President Wilson has also partly blunted the 



78 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

edge of the Alsace-Lorraine stroke in advance. 
In a speech dehvered July 4th, 1918, he says: 
''The settlement must be final. There can 
be no compromise. No half-way decision is 
conceivable." Again Lansing's note of May, 
1918, defines with justice and clarity the atti- 
tude of the United States toward the oppressed 
Slavs and Latins of Central Europe; thus 
the Alsace-Lorraine trick is already checked 
in the best way imaginable. But with the 
Boches one can never be too sure, and the 
more our press insists on the perfidy hidden 
under this cloak, the more its success will be 
rendered impossible. 

IV. 

We have explained the situation resulting 
from four years of war, and we will now show 
how the Germans could exploit it. Let us 
assume that the Allies have driven them out 
of France and Belgium, that Alsace-Lorraine 
is restored, and that peace negotiations are 
going on, but that Germany continues to pre- 
dominate over central Europe and Russia. 

On this hypothesis, how can the bankruptcy 
of the Allied European states be brought about, 
according to the German design .^^ It is not 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 79 

necessary in this connection to touch upon 
the financial situation of Great Britain and 
Italy; it will be sufficient to sketch broadly 
the effect of the German aggression in this 
respect on France. In the first place, her posi- 
tion is particularly striking, for she has borne 
the burden and heat of the day. She is the 
bulwark of civilization and has made greater 
money sacrifices, and endured losses much 
heavier than those of her allies. Secondly, 
as France is the pivot of the Entente coalition, 
it is at her finances that the Germans aim, in 
order by reflex action to reach Italy and Great 
Britain. 

At the opening of hostilities France had 
issued 6 milliards of bank-notes, and in July, 
1918, this circulation had increased to 29 mil- 
liards of francs. In June, 1914, France had 
3 milUards in gold and silver, and in July, 1918, 
the specie reserve of the Bank of France 
amounted in round numbers to 5 milliards, 600 
millions, of which 2 millions in gold was abroad 
as security for war debts. The French national 
debt was 30 milliards before the war; when 
this is over, what with huge war expenditures, 
reconstruction of railways, etc., it will amount 
to 200 milliards of francs. Now prior to 1914, 
the entire fortune of France was estimated 



80 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

by economists at between 250 and 325 mil- 
liards. The pensions alone for the wounded 
and for the widows of soldiers, with interest 
on the war debt, will bring the annual budget 
up from the former figure of 5 milliards to at 
least 12 milliards of francs, an increase of not 
less than 7 milliards which will have to be 
raised by permanent taxation. 

The German invasion, besides, has ravaged 
and pillaged the northeast of France, the chief 
industrial region, and so rich that before the 
war it paid a fourth of the French taxes. 
French citizens also have lost nearly 20 mil- 
liards in Russian, Balkan, and Ottoman securi- 
ties. 

It has been stated, that in the first three 
years of war, French imports exceeded exports 
by about 25 milliards, and finally France has 
borrowed large sums abroad to buy raw ma- 
terial and feed her population. 

Every intelligent Frenchman therefore un- 
derstands that the 29 milliards in paper-money 
at the above date, must have for their 
security not only 5 milliards in specie (2 of 
them abroad), but a victory suflSciently real 
to force Germany to make good her thefts, 
and progressively repair the injuries she has 
caused. 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 81 

This conforms to the most elementary idea 
of justice, and is also the sole economic pos- 
sibility. While Germany is gorged with riches 
as the fruit of her crimes, how could our brave 
French soldiers pay a tax increase of 7 mil- 
liards, when they come back from the trenches 
after such years, the country torn by the 
struggle, while Germany preserves the greater 
part of her immense profits ? 

We must face the truth and speak it plainly : 
only annuities paid by the Germans, for dam- 
age inflicted, used to back French national 
loans, will enable France to save her people 
from taxes that would soon be fatal, and to 
keep engagements which she holds sacred. 

The French believe firmly that a just peace 
will bring restitution, and that is why they 
have not lost faith in their paper currency, 
which in spite of its increase retains its full 
purchasing power. This economic and psy- 
chologic position is watched carefully by the 
cunning Boches, for they hope to make use 
of it through their pacifist manoeuvres. 

The Berlin Deutsche OehonomisU May 4th, 
1918, says: "The money situation in France 
is worse now than at any time during the 
World War. The printing-press is the only 
source of revenue for M. Klotz, Minister of 



82 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Finance, and he makes liberal use of it. . . . 
If this goes on, fresh notes will have to be is- 
sued in France to pay interest on the national 
debt, just as in Russia." 

On the other hand, the Boches know well 
enough that these difficulties are as naught, 
as long as France remains the corner-stone 
of the coalition, for the Entente as a whole, 
especially since the United States entered the 
war, has large financial resources. To succeed, 
then, in their scheme, they want to isolate 
France, leaving her to cope single-handed 
with her money difficulties. 

To understand and thwart this Boche plot 
we must presuppose a state of things best 
adapted to its success, as follows: Seeing the 
influx of American troops, the German Govern- 
ment will admit that a military decision is not 
immediately possible, and will endeavor to 
bring about a treaty of Brest-Litovsk suitable 
to western conditions. The Berlin General 
Staff will then adopt the following tactics. 
Their armies will fall back slowly on the 
western front, destroying all behind them, so 
that the ground regained may cost the Allies 
as much as possible. France and Belgium will 
be evacuated, while we advance slowly but 
continuously. Meanwhile, our papers will be 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 83 

filled with accounts of victory, and the public 
will believe that the German army is con- 
quered because it has certainly retired before 
the onslaught of the Allies, the German press 
will not deny this, it will even offer Alsace- 
Lorraine as the price of peace. Our pacifists 
and Bolschevists, encouraged by these events 
will urge their views more strongly than ever, 
and the majority of people in Entente coun- 
tries will be so influenced that at last they 
will say: "Why accept new sacrifices since 
we are now victorious ? We can talk of peace 
on our own terms." The Alhed governments 
feel the danger of negotiations while Germany 
still holds Central Europe and Russia, but on 
our hypothesis we will imagine them over- 
borne by public opinion. Military operations 
would then cease, and parleys would begin. 

Nothing would suit the Germans better, 
for they would then be sure of the success of 
their western Brest-Litovsk. They believe 
that the money position of the Allies is such 
that peace conversation would be no sooner 
begun, than it would give rise to the follow- 
ing chain of circumstances: 

The Germans argue thus: ''Suppose we 
engage the Allies in talk, we are none the less 
masters of Central Europe and Russia. Shortly 



84 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

after the opening of negotiations, the French 
will be brought to see that Germany will not 
act as she expects, and repair the harm done 
by the war. As the purchasing power of the 
French notes rests entirely on the public con- 
fidence in German restitution, if this confidence 
disappears, at the same time, the purchasing 
power of the notes will also vanish, while the 
cost of living, already high, will rise still 
further. This effect is bound to follow since 
to buy the same article a larger amount of 
paper money will be required continually, 
as was the case in Russia. This drop in the 
purchasing power of notes of the Bank of 
France will cause wide-spread troubles in daily 
life over even now invaded districts, which 
will soon grow inextricable. The people, worn 
by the long nervous strain, will lose their 
heads; there will be riots before which the 
government will be helpless, because the vitia- 
tion of its currency will have undermined the 
national credit. Bonds of the National De- 
fense and French rents will fall with the same 
rapidity, and this, joined to the hardships of 
the winter months, will at least destroy the 
morale of the French, rendering further mili- 
tary resistance out of the question. Under 
these circumstances, the British troops and 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 85 

the two million Americans in France could 
be of no use. 'From this moment,' argue the 
Germans, 'we have only to repeat the trick 
which worked so well in Russia after our nego- 
tiations with the Bolshevists had broken the 
national spirit. The financial crisis leaving 
France at our mercy, having carefully saved 
our eflfectives, reinforced by a new class, we 
will resume the offensive, this time without 
serious resistance, and penetrate to the very 
heart of France. We can then control the 
material wealth of the hitherto uninvaded 
districts, and, with the whole country in our 
power, will use it as a base against the United 
States according to programme.' " 

Such is a bird's-eye view of the plot the 
Germans are working at this moment in try- 
ing by every means in their power to secure 
an armistice which would save them from in- 
vasion and would open a period of negotia- 
tions. If our lack of foresight allows them 
to carry it into effect, the results will be in- 
finitely disastrous. The success of this plan 
in France would entail the downfall of Eng- 
land, and of Italy also, on account of her de- 
pendence on France. Berlin has built up this 
clever scheme, on which she counts to give 
her victory, just at the moment that the Allies 



86 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

think they have won. She trusts that these 
economic methods will prevail, even if she is 
driven back in the west, as long as she can 
hold the rest of her war booty and retain her 
grip on Russia. 

From the foregoing, we draw three impor- 
tant conclusions: 

1st. The Allied credit depends on a true 
victory implying restitution from Germany 
and the relinquishment of her control of cen- 
tral Europe, which implies the dismemberment 
of Austria-Hungary. 

2d. Four years of war have produced an 
unprecedented economic situation; therefore 
the purchasing power of the Allied currency 
must necessarily diminish if negotiations are 
entered on before an economically restorative 
and really decisive victory from the European 
point of view. 

3d. These dangers threaten us only because 
the Allies have not argued as they should on 
peace as it would affect the extraordinary 
state of finance resulting from the war. 

This omission in most of our peace pro- 
grammes would end, if these programmes were 
applied, in a disaster more hopeless than any 
military catastrophe. This sword hangs over 
our heads because many of us think of the 



THE GERMANS AND THE ARMISTICE 87 

Germans as impoverished instead of being 
enriched by the war. It is, however, easy to 
parry this blow and to make its success im- 
possible; we must undertake a campaign of 
popular education to instruct the whole Allied 
public as to the reality and extent of the Ger- 
man war projBts. All will then see that the 
war must not end till Germany has restored 
the fruit of her enormous thefts and repaired 
the vast damages which she has caused, not 
only by the destruction she has carried out, 
but by the war costs, much greater than her 
own, which her aggression has forced upon her 
adversaries. 



CHAPTER III. 

PANGERMANY'S PROBABLE MILITARY STRENGTH, 
AND ITS WEAKNESS AT THE OUTSET OF THE 
FIFTH YEAR OF WAR. 

I. The annual military contingent of Germany. 
II. Approximate strength of German mobilized forces in 
August, 1918. 

III. Critical discussion of the figures found to represent the 

man-power of Germany. 

IV. The probable total forces of Pangermany in August, 

1918. 

V. How new sources of effectives could have been used to 

offset the American numbers, if the Allies had not acted 

in the Balkans and time had been left to the Germans. 

VI. How it is the successes of the Allies in the Balkans that 

secure the superiority in man-power to the Entente. 
VII. The teachings of the recent past and of the present 
prove the immense power of political strategy, and 
that for the Allies the Danube-Central Europe front 
exerts a decisive influence on the issue of the war. 

The progressive evacuation of France and 
of Belgium by the Germans, the surrender of 
Bulgaria, of Turkey, of Austria-Hungary, must 
not prevent us from studying thoroughly the 
military forces of the states which have made 
up and may again make up Pangermany. 

This study is necessary to avoid, in esti- 
mating the German man-power, any error, 

88 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 89 

at the conclusion of peace, which would be 
fatal to the cause of democracy. We shall see 
in effect that the Germans have still more men 
than the Allies generally believe, and that con- 
sequently the AUies ought still to be cautious. 

The opinion prevailing in Entente coun- 
tries is that victory will fall to the group of 
beUigerents possessing the greatest man-power, 
but this opinion is not altogether in harmony 
with the teachings of history. Thanks to 
superior strategy. Napoleon often conquered 
even with numbers against him, and in the 
first four years of the World War, success has 
not fallen to the largest numerical group, as 
the following table will show: 



Entente 


Central Powers 


"Riiccin . . 


Millions of 
Inhabitants 

182 
46 
40 
36 

8 

7 

6 

5 

4 

334 


Germanv 


Millions of 
Inhabitants 

68 


Enffland 


Austria-Hungary . . 
Turkey 


50 


l^roripp 


20 


Italv 


Bulgaria 


5 


Roumania 

Belgium 


Total 




Portugal 

Serbia 




Greece 




Total 


143 









90 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Great Britain certainly was short of men 
when the war broke out, but by 1916 she had 
raised a considerable army, and it is equally 
true that Austria-Hungary was of but little 
assistance to Germany, owing to the fact that 
the majority of her Slav and Latin popula- 
tion — about 28 millions — was averse to the 
war. Turkey and Bulgaria also were exhausted 
and stripped of their armaments by the Balkan 
Wars, so that they did not really come into 
line before 1915. As a whole, then, the Entente 
had an enormous numerical advantage of 191 
millions of inhabitants over the Central Em- 
pires, which of course meant reserves of man- 
power much greater than those of the Boches, 
but in spite of this a glance at the map of Pan- 
germany in August, 1918 (page 14), shows 
that the latter had the upper hand. 

Numbers, then, do not insure victory, which 
may rather depend on the strategic use made 
of forces covering the whole theatre of war. 

It was necessary to show the relative value 
of numbers in a campaign, but there should 
be no misconception as to the extreme im- 
portance of large reserves, for, the strategic 
qualities of the contestants being equal, it is 
obvious that victory will fall to the share of 
the larger armies. The question of effectives 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 91 

is most important to the Allies, and rightly 
so, but many of them think erroneously that 
since the American reinforcements assure our 
superiority in man-power, nothing can over- 
throw it. If this is so, it is only by reason of 
certain political-strategic conditions in the 
east, which I will explain at the end of this 
chapter. 

During the first three years of the war. 
Allied opinion on the question of German 
reserves was influenced chiefly by Colonel 
Repington, military critic of the London 
Times; this paper, however, no longer pub- 
lishes his articles. In these fateful three years, 
most Allied papers inclined to the views of 
the greatest and most devoted to the cause of 
the Allies of the British dailies, but Colonel 
Repington's premonitions have been falsified 
by the events. He announced many times 
that, according to his calculations, German 
reserves would be soon exhausted. This mis- 
take as to the enemy's effectives has done an 
infinite amount of harm to our cause, as I 
pointed out in an article published by La 
Vidoire, Paris, October 28th, 1916. The ar- 
ticle is here exactly reproduced: 

"'In the London Times of Jan. 10, 1916, we 
read : 



92 AN ENDURING VICTORY 



ccc 



Col. Repington estimates the German 
losses at 200,000 men a month; if therefore 
the struggle continues with the same intensity, 
up to a date between May and October, 1916, 
Germany will be unable to stop the gaps made 
in her lines by the fighting of each day. Be- 
fore that date, then, she must try to obtain 
a decision, on one front or the other. 

"'Four weeks later Col. Repington made 
statements not only entirely opposed to the 
above, but much more reasonable, and which 
showed on what slender grounds his earlier 
calculations had been made. This is clear 
from his letter to the Times of the 9th of Feb. 
1916, in which he asserts that the "Berlin 
government now has at its disposal reserve 
forces amounting to 2,700,000 men."' (See 
L' Information, Paris, February 10th, 1916.) 

"A month before, when Colonel Repington 
stated that the Germans were losing 200,000 
a month, and that sometime between May 
and October they would find themselves with- 
out reserves, he made a serious mistake. The 
extreme carelessness of his judgment appears 
yet more clearly when we read a statement in 
The Times of April 30th, which ignores his 
previous estimate of the number of German 
reserves, for he writes exactly as if these re- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 93 

serves did not exist when he says: 'The Ger- 
man armies on the Russian front do not 
amount to more than 1,300 men to the mile 
. . . and to sum up, the eastern front is a new 
wall of China with nothing behind it.' rin- 
formation, Paris, May 2, 1916, accepts Rep- 
ington's miscalculation copying The Times 
article, with the headline, 'The German armies 
have no more reserves.' 

''By the end of August, 1916, Colonel Rep- 
ington decides that Germany is reduced ev- 
erywhere to the defensive (Le Journal, Paris, 
August 25th, 1916), the lack of reserves ren- 
dering it impossible for the Kaiser to make 
a serious offensive. A flat contradiction to 
this was soon shown when Berlin overthrew 
Roumania, with fresh troops which poured in 
from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and 
Bulgaria (see Journal de Geneve, 19th of Oc- 
tober, 1916, quoting from Uldea Nazionale). 

"The contrast between the actual facts in 
1916 and Repington's calculations of the Ger- 
man reserves alone will prove to the least in- 
formed that even if these estimates were 
serious, they were quite insufficient to give 
so much as an approximate idea of the truth. 
"In point of fact, when we speak of German 
reserves, we must surely mean to include ef- 



94 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

fectives contributed by Austria-Hungary, Tur- 
key, and Bulgaria, all under orders from Ber- 
lin; for as far as we can see, without these 
vassals, Germany could not keep up the 
struggle. There can be no doubt that the 
Bulgars work for the King of Prussia in 
Monastir, and the Turks in Galicia and the 
Dobrudja. Thus, at the lowest estimate 
there must be 1,500,000 Turco-Bulgars to be 
subdued by the Allies, just as much as the 
Austro-Boches. These 1,500,000 Turco-Bul- 
gars deserve particular consideration from 
Colonel Repington, for, as we all know, he has 
contributed to place them at the service of 
William II by his strenuous opposition to 
the Allied attempt to preserve the Danube 
front; though this was the only operation 
which could have prevented the junction of 
the Germans, Bulgars and Turks, and, there- 
fore, the hold of the Kaiser on this 1,500,000 
people. The colonel, however, does not in- 
clude them in his calculations, any more than 
the 2 millions of prisoners held by the Ger- 
mans, who work in their munition factories 
or behind the military fronts, thereby setting 
free just so many Austro-Boches, who without 
these prisoners would have themselves to carry 
on these labors indispensable to the army. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 95 

"Colonel Repington's carelessness and inco- 
herence on these points must be clear, then, to 
the meanest capacity. His estimates as to the 
enemies' effectives are full of mistakes, for he 
neglects the essential factors to be considered; 
and these mistakes have produced the worst 
practical consequences. The great weight at- 
tached to The Times, has caused numerous Al- 
hed newspapers to quote Repington's articles 
in the fullest confidence, and this has filled the 
public mind in Entente countries, with the 
most dangerous notions about the duration of 
the war, and the extent of effort necessary to 
defeat the barbarians from beyond the Rhine." 

These lines were written at the end of 1916. 
Since then the German offensives in different 
directions have proved how much Colonel 
Repington was mistaken as to the enemy's 
reserves, but these errors have contributed 
materially to the cruel disappointments of the 
Allies and the prolongation of the war, for 
his statements fostered the opinion that the 
conflict would certainly end in three months, 
as Germany was near exhaustion, and that all 
that was needful was to push the fight on the 
western front until her reserves gave out, when 
our victory was sure to follow. 



96 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Four years of war and the fact that the pro- 
gressive evacuation of France and of Belgium 
was decided upon by the Germans only after 
the defeat of Bulgaria at the end of September, 
1918, demonstrate the depth of these errors, 
and as the interest of America is identical 
with that of the Allies, she should grasp the 
situation clearly that she may avoid the mis- 
take made in Europe as to the man-power of 
Germany, which has always been greatly 
underestimated, so that even to-day, after the 
German retreat on the west front, it is placed 
at much less than it is in reality. 

The Allies were so much surprised at the 
numerical superiority of the Germans during 
their great offensive on the western front in 
April- June, 1918, that in order to account for 
it, certain Allies explained that before the war 
Germany gave out false reports as to her 
population, which was much larger than the 
official figures, and now supplied her from 
resources greater than had been believed. 
The truth is really much simpler, for mistakes 
about the German forces arise from superficial 
ideas existing among the Allies on many sub- 
jects, not only about Austria-Hungary, Bul- 
garia, and Turkey, countries difficult to un- 
derstand, but about Germany as well. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 97 

We are apt to think it a sign of weakness 
when we see boys of seventeen in the German 
army, and from the early days of the war our 
press often mentioned this, saying: "Germany 
must be in a bad way, if she has to use recruits 
only seventeen years old." It is, however, 
perfectly natural, and long before the war it 
was the law that every German, able to bear 
arms should be liable to military service, that 
is, he might be obliged to join the colors at 
seventeen years of age. In time of peace these 
joined at twenty, but the circumstance of 
their enlistment during the war at seventeen, 
far from being a proof indicative of German 
exhaustion, shows, on the contrary, that the 
Berlin government resolved long ago to make 
war with all the means at its command, and 
thus to deal its enemies the deadliest blows. 

In July and August, 1918, when our brilliant 
counter-offensives forced the Teutons back 
from the Soisson-Rheims salient, even as early 
as the first day of August, many of the Allies 
returned to the opinion that his retirement 
was owing to lack of men, and that complete 
victory would result automatically from the 
destruction of the German army on the west- 
ern front. It is now hard to understand such 
fixed and definite ideas. On the 16th of Au- 



98 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

gust many Allied papers estimated the German 
losses since July 15tli at 250,000 men, 'a large 
number, no doubt; but to judge sanely of the 
effect of this on the war we must set against 
it the loss the Germans have inflicted on us 
since April, a loss certainly not negligible, as 
everything in war is a question of comparison 
between the two contestants. 

The above figure for German losses is not 
high enough to allow us to conclude that the 
enemy at this period, when the Bulgarian 
disaster had not yet taken place, was al- 
ready short of reserves, especially as we were 
assured that he had about 7 millions of men 
on all the western front. This retirement 
may, perhaps, be interpreted as part of the 
shrewd pacifist manoeuvre of which I have 
spoken in the preceding chapter, and which 
I had foreseen two years ago (see my pref- 
ace). 

Color is given to this idea by an extract 
from the Stuttgart Neues Taghlatt, dated Au- 
gust 19th, 1918, which quotes from the 
Schwdbische Tagwacht, a statement that Ger- 
many's soldiers are exhausted, and agree with 
the civil population in demanding peace at 
any price. I do not say this is not true; I 
merely state that, given the German censor- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 99 

ship at this period, an item of this sort could 
only have been published on the other side 
of the Rhine with permission of the General 
Staff, which must certainly have had some 
purpose to serve in authorizing the appear- 
ance of such a statement. There is at least 
ground for suspicion. 

However this may be, four years of war 
have not justified these opinions held in the 
Entente, notably by Colonel Repington, as to 
German reserves. The only way of reaching a 
fair conclusion on this question, always ex- 
tremely important, even at this moment when 
the Germans are beginning to evacuate France 
and Belgium, is to start fresh, renouncing all 
former opinions which stand in need of proof, 
and seeking corroboration from reliable sources 
as to Germany's man-power and her military 
strength at the threshold of this fifth year of 
the war, remembering always that this 
strength is exerted over the entire war-field 
subject to the direction of Berlin. 

To approximate as nearly as possible to the 
truth, we must study successively the two es- 
sential elements of this problem. 

1st. What is the annual military contingent 
of Germany ? 

2d. Making proper deductions, what was 



100 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

the present state of Germany's mobilized 
military forces in August, 1918. 

I. 

The mistake of the AUies as to German re- 
serves arises from an inexact valuation of their 
annual military contingent. Many people of 
importance put this contingent at about 
400,000, and this figure is generally accepted 
by the Allies. According to German reports 
dating from before the war, these figures are 
much below the truth. According to the 
best-known German military publication, Loe- 
helVs Jahresherichte for 1911, published in the 
spring of 1912, the number of recruits for 
1910 was 1,245,363, the population of the 
empire being then exactly Q5 millions. On 
looking at these figures carefully, we see that 
they include the class coming up for examina- 
tion as well as those adjourned from preceding 
classes. Taken in the lump, they can be 
analyzed thus: 

Excluded on account of criminal conviction 890 

Invalided 34,067 

Men in advance of their time 39,970 

Service deferred (ajournh) 715,952 

Men fit for service 454,484 

Let us analyze these figures, so as to ascer- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 101 

tain the annual contingent of Germany if she 
had wished to make war in 1910, instead of 
merely keeping up her peace establishment. 

To keep down expenses before the war, 
Germany did not enHst by any means all the 
men fit for service, so it is plain that if she 
had brought on war in 1910, she would first 
have taken into the army the whole number 
ready for that year; say 454,484 men. Now 
let us examine the list of those whose service 
was deferred, 715,952, a very high figure. We 
must first understand the conditions under 
which men are deferred (or adjourned) from 
the German army. This does not happen in 
cases of sickness, but where the men are phys- 
ically fit, but suffering from some temporary 
weakness. It was easy to get an adjournment 
before the war, as there were more men fit for 
service than the state could afford to enlist. 
Moreover, excuse is granted in Germany for 
any one of a number of reasons, depending on 
family or commercial considerations, so that 
men obtain it as — 

1st. The necessary support of a family. 

2d. The sons of a landed proprietor, farmer, 
or manufacturer incapable of work. 

3d. Next of kin to soldiers killed, or dead 
of wounds in the service. 



102 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

4th. Having inherited property or land, 
which can only be managed by themselves. 

5th. Owners of factories or important busi- 
ness houses where their presence is indispen- 
sable. 

6th. Young men preparing for any pro- 
fession, study or trade to which interruption 
would be prejudicial. 

7th. Young men living abroad. 

From this it is clear that the men exempted 
in peace-time are all physically capable of 
bearing arms for the Kaiser, or of work in 
the many branches of service in the rear of an 
army. Observe also that according to mili- 
tary law adjournment lasts only three years, 
so that the number, 715,952 men for 1910, 
mentioned above includes only three classes 
adjourned; consequently, taking a third of this 
figure — 238,650, we reach the mean number of 
men adjourned in 1910, who would unques- 
tionably have entered the army in that year. 

In 1910, Germany had also 34,067 reformes 
(men invalided), and of course in all the bellig- 
erent countries it is much harder to be invalided 
in time of war; therefore we can allow a third of 
the figure 34,067, say, 11,355, men who would 
have been part of the war contingent in 1910. 

To sum up, if Germany had begun the war 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 103 

in that year, her war levy would have been 
made up of three categories, as follows: 

Fit for service in 1910 454,484 men 

A third of those adjourned in 1910 238.650 men 

A third of those reformis in 1910 11,355 men 

Total 704,489 men 

Let us say in round numbers 300,000 men 
besides the 400,000 generally allowed to be 
the regular annual levy. 

This total of 700,000 men is probably less 
than the present annual war contingent in 
Germany, as it pertains to the year 1910, and 
according to the Almanack de Gotha, page 531, 
in 1910 Germany had exactly 64,925,993 in- 
habitants, in 1913 she had 66,835,000; in- 
dicating an average increase for each of the 
three years of 636,335 inhabitants. On this 
basis, without considering effects resulting 
from the war, the population of Germany was: 

In 1911 65,562,328 inhabitants 

In 1912 66,198,663 inhabitants 

In 1913 66,835,000 inhabitants 

In 1914 67,471,335 inhabitants 

In 1915 68,107,670 inhabitants 

In 1916 68,744,005 inhabitants 

In 1917 69,380,340 inhabitants 

In 1918 70,016,675 inhabitants 

These figures provide a basis for calculations 



104 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

of great practical interest because the two 
causes which at present diminish these figures — 
the German losses and the decline in the birth- 
rate caused by the war — certainly do not in- 
fluence the increase of the annual military con- 
tingent of Germany. Since 1915, those who 
have reached the military age of seventeen are 
not less in number owing to events now taking 
place, because they were born after 1898, that 
is, during a period in which the German birth- 
rate was steadily rising from year to year; 
hence we can fairly consider that the above 
figures reflect accurately the size of the popu- 
lation from which Germany has drawn recruits 
since 1915, but we must bear in mind that on 
account of the high birth-rate after 1898 re- 
sources in men are considerable, and will con- 
tinue for some years to come. Consequently, 
from the recruiting point of view, the figures 
showing the growth of the German population 
from 1911 to 1918 will allow us to estimate as 
closely as possible the annual military contin- 
gent of Germany for the same period. If this 
amounted to 700,000 men in 1910, as against 
Q5 millions of inhabitants, that is, about 10.77 
for every 1,000, it would have been: 

In 1911 706,055 men 

In 1912 712,908 men 

In.l913 719,761 men 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 105 

In 1914 726,614 men 

In 1915 733,467 men 

In 1916 740,320 men 

In 1917 747,172 men 

In 1918 754,025 men 

This gives a total of 5,840,322 men for these 
eight years. As the Entente usually reckons 
the annual German levies at 400,000, in the 
light of the facts just presented, based on the 
latest German official figures obtainable, their 
last eight military contingents would have been 
calculated as only 3,200,000 men, making an 
underestimate of apparently about 2,600,000. 

This showing explains in a striking manner 
some of the events of the last four years — up to 
the moment when the Bulgarian debacle and 
the Allied advance toward the Danube have 
compelled the German General Staff abruptly 
to shorten the western front to rush to defend 
central Europe — particularly: 

1st. How Germany has been able, up to the 
time of the Bulgarian defeat, to continue her 
penetration in Russia, while maintaining de- 
fensive pressure in the west. 

2d. How the Germans have been able to 
keep up their long lines of communication, a 
feat rarely mentioned, but which must re- 
quire a large personnel. 

3d. How for the last four years the Ger- 



106 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

mans have surprised the AlHes, always op- 
posing them with forces superior to their cal- 
culations at any critical moment. 

II. 

The annual military levy of Germany since 
1910, being known by means of the foregoing 
calculations, let us now estimate her mobilized 
forces at the beginning of the fifth year of 
war, August, 1918. 

In Mr. Gerard's book. My Four Years in 
Germany, he says that there were 12 millions 
of soldiers mobilized by William II when he 
declared war. As Germany had a population 
of about 68 millions in 1914, this would mean 
17^ per cent of the people. The French ex- 
generalissimo. General de Lacroix, estimated 
the whole German mobilization at 13 millions 
of men, say 19 per cent of the population. 
According to law every German is liable to 
military service from 17 years to the end of 
the 45th year of age. Compare the official 
figures of the French census of 1910 showing 
that the male population from 17 to 45 inclu- 
sive represents 21 in 100 of the French people, 
the general average in most countries — we can 
therefore reckon the entire German mobiliza- 
tion at 20 per cent of the inhabitants, which 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 107 

gives us 13,600,000 men, it being more prudent 
to put the German strength at rather more 
than less. This figure of 13,600,000 men mo- 
bihzed is very conservative, as it relates to the 
number of inhabitants in 1914 — 68 millions. 
In the last four years the German population 
has increased on an average of 636,335 a year, 
deducting war losses, of which we will speak 
later. These figures are taken from the Al- 
manack de Gotha, 1914, page 531, above quoted 
(see page 103). 

In 1918, then, Germany contained 70,016,675 
inhabitants. Hence, taking as a basis the 
mobilization of 20 in 100 on the round number 
of 68 millions of people in 1914, we are prob- 
ably if anything short of the truth. 

In this number of 13,600,000 men are in- 
cluded, of course, soldiers on the various fronts, 
and those in the innumerable service depart- 
ments of all kinds of the German army. 

This lump sum of 13,600,000 has been modi- 
fied in two ways. First, it has been diminished 
by war losses. Secondly, these losses have been 
partially compensated for by the German 
annual recruitment. 

Let us consider the value of each of these 
factors. According to an authority which I 
am bound to hold as particularly trustworthy. 



108 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

on the 1st of June, 1918, the German loss 
may be estimated by the use of the following 
data. 

Figures carefully collated state their loss 
to have been exactly 3,400,000 on April 1st, 
1917. Add to this the losses from April to 
the 31st of December, 1917. Battles of the 
Aisne, Flanders, etc., say 1,100,000 men, which 
brings the total on January 1st, 1918, up to 
about 4,500,000. By June 1st of this year, the 
list was estimated at 300,000 — making 4,800,- 
000 men; then we must include the sick and 
wounded, a constant figure estimated at about 
500,000. Putting all these together, according 
to those in a position to know best, we reach 
the total of a loss of 5,300,000 men to Ger- 
many by the 1st of June, 1918. 

We might add subsequent losses incident 
to our victorious counter-ojffensive since July 
15th, but from the 1st of June to the 1st of 
August data are lacking for an exact computa- 
tion, and, on the other hand, the problem be- 
fore us consists in the attempts to ascertain 
the average annual loss of Germany. Relying 
on the authoritative sources of information 
above mentioned, we have brought our esti- 
mates to the 1st of June, 1918, and from this 
point we can reach an average for the four 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 109 

years of war within a month, or very nearly 
exact. 

Now let us see how much the annual levies 
of Germany have compensated for her losses. 

These annual contingents (see page 105) 
amount to about — 

733,000 men in 1915 

740,000 men in 1916 

747,00.0 men in 1917 

754,000 men in 1918 

a total of 2,974,000 men for the four years of 
war. 

The mobilized strength of Germany in 1914 

was 13,600,000 men 

Ascertained losses resulting from the war, 

June 1st, 1916 5,300,000 men 

reduce this to 8,300,000 men 

Four military levies, 1915-1916-1917-1918, in 

round numbers 2,900,000 men 

brmg this to 11,200,000 men 

Eleven millions of men mobilized were, 
therefore, at the disposal of Germany at the 
opening of the fifth year of war. The modera- 
tion and probability of this statement can be 
verified by the following reasoning. The Al- 
lied High Command and Senator Berenger, of 
the Committee on Effectives of the French 



110 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Senate, in their figures estimated the num- 
ber of Germans on all the western front at 
7 millions in June, 1918. From our estimates 
that would leave only 4 millions to carry on 
all the work in the interior of Germany, to 
supply the armies in Russia and Turkey, and 
secure extended communication in hostile dis- 
tricts. For all these purposes 4 millions is 
rather an insufficient number, so our calcula- 
tions are probably not too high. 

We can now see clearly two causes for the 
misapprehension of the Allies as to Germany's 
military resources. First mistake: The Ger- 
man annual contingent is usually reckoned 
at 400,000 men, but according to German 
statistics (page 103) it ought to be about 
700,000. Second mistake: German losses on 
June 1st, 1918, are counted as positively 
5,300,000 men, without reflecting that, if this 
figure is right with regard to the total popu- 
lation of Germany, it is not so when it is 
compared with the figures of the initial 
mobilization. It is important to remember 
that the length of the war feeds the war, that 
is, four annual military contingents have filled 
up in a great measure the gaps made by losses 
in the German army. Our task is to destroy 
the men who compose this army faster than 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 111 

they can be replaced by the German people. 
It is wrong, then, to speak of the absolute 
German loss (5,300,000 on the 1st of June, 
1918), for this implies a corresponding dimi- 
nution in the mobihzed forces of Germany, 
which is not the state of the case. Her strength 
being kept up by annual enlistments, her real 
losses after four years of war would be: 5,300,- 
000 less 2,900,000 recruits, giving 2,400,000 
men. Keeping in mind the comparison with the 
amount of the initial mobilization, the actual 
loss of the German army to August, 1918, was 
in round numbers only a fourth of that num- 
ber, say 600,000 men a year, a very much 
lower figure than is generally allowed. 

This number of men annually lost, if ad- 
mitted as right, accounts for much that was 
obscure in the evolution of the war, and ex- 
plains the disappointments of the Allies at 
finding superior forces always before them, 
contrary to their calculations. These figures 
also prove the falsity of Colonel Repington's 
theories, for he has always maintained that 
Germany can be completely conquered, driven 
out in the west, and forced to yield central 
and eastern Europe, as well as Turkey. To 
this end he would pursue a concentrated war 
of attrition on the western front, destroying 



112 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

successively and surely the German effective 
force, and by this means arriving at a complete 
victory for the Allies. The weakness of this 
conception must be made clear by the fact 
that it was the victorious offensive of the Allies 
in the Balkans which compelled the German 
General Staff to evacuate more quickly France 
and Belgium. 

If any doubt remains let us remember that 
if Germany has lost 600,000 men a year, she 
has also reached great results, for this sacri- 
fice, combined with her political strategy, has 
gained for her the use and control of the wealth 
of three-fourths of Europe and a part of Asia. 
The Allies, on the other hand, underestimating 
the importance of the eastern front, neglected 
for four years the great strategic possibilities 
of a campaign on the Danube, and thus de- 
prived themselves of the resources of Russia 
and the Balkans, which they controlled at 
the outset. They have been, for this reason, 
blockaded in eastern Europe, and obliged to 
bring from Australia and America at great 
expense most of the food and raw material 
of which they stand in need. Again, in pro- 
portion to her first mobilized army, Germany 
has lost 600,000 men a year, but the war map 
(see page 14) shows how nearly she has ap- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 113 

proached to the Pangermanist standard, and 
also that she has inflicted on her adversaries 
losses equal to her own. This cannot be 
denied, for we know the Russians lost many 
more men than the Germans; the French 
losses have not been made public, but we 
know that in April, 1918, there were more 
French prisoners in Germany than there were 
Germans in France, which shows at the very 
least that the French have certainly lost pro- 
portionately more than the Germans. It is 
not easy to demonstrate, therefore, that we 
can gain the victory through the exhaustion of 
Germany's man-power, since it is proved that 
the military and political strategy finally 
carried out by the Allies in the Balkans has 
accomplished in a few days results which four 
years of persistent effort on the western front 
could not secure. 



III. 

The figures given by our deductions: 13,600,- 
000 for the whole mobilized German army, and 
700,000 for its probable war contingent, being 
much higher than those generally accepted by 
the Entente, are of a nature to cause great 
surprise and raise objections. A profound 



114 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

scrutiny of these figures is therefore not only 
needful but indispensable, for if finally it is 
well established that they certainly approxi- 
mate to the truth it will demonstrate a fact of 
great value to the Entente, of which the practi- 
cal importance will appear logically at the end 
of this verification. In order to go to the root 
of the analysis of our figures, I will review my 
statements from the beginning, following an en- 
tirely different method, by means of which the 
results of the first can be checked. First, I will 
prove that a grave error has been most certainly 
made by the Allies in their calculations of Ger- 
man man-power. Second, I will point out the 
different objections likely to present themselves 
to the mind of my readers, and present the an- 
swers which can be given. 

1st. The Misapprehension of the Allies 
AS TO the Annual German Contingent 
IS Certain and Important. 

The number of 400,000 men for Germany's 
annual contingent is generally accepted by the 
Allies. On June 10th, 1918, an article ap- 
peared in the Paris Temps by Lieutenant 
d'Entraygues, in which, speaking of the Ger- 
man class of 1920, which in June, 1918, was in 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 115 

the Kaiser's instruction-camps, he said: "This 
class will yield an effective of 400,000 men." 
On the 7th of September, 1918, the New York 
Times published a despatch by an American 
correspondent in Paris, who had evidently 
gained his information in France. He says: 
"What the American factor now means may 
be judged from one fact. During the month 
of August 400,000 American soldiers landed in 
France. This number is as nearly as possible 
equivalent to the whole German 1920 class, 
on which there is no doubt that the enemy has 
been very largely counting to compensate him 
for the enormous cost in man-power which 
the Allies are causing him at present." 

Now we will show why it is quite impossible 
that the German class of 1920 should amount 
to only 400,000 men. The figures of LoebeWs 
Jahresberichte, on which I have based all my 
calculations, are to be found in a pamphlet 
called The Military Situation of all Nations, 
published in 1914, before the war, by Berger- 
Levrault, the foremost French military pub- 
lisher, whose technical works are brought out 
with the assistance of qualified officers. To 
demonstrate that I have made no mistake, 
either in the sources or the conclusions drawn 
from the figures which formed the starting-point 



116 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

ALLEMAQNB 7 

fls ne le soat g^n^ralement que pour une seule 
pferiode Dans la landwehr du 2» ban et dans le 
landsturm, il n'est plus fait aucune convocation. 

11 importe de remarquer que les diverses regies 
qui pr6c6dent hb sont pas absolues ni imperatives; ce 
qui caractferise essentieJlement les lois de recrute- 
ment enAllemagne, c'est leurgrande 61asticitfe et,en 
m6me temps, le souci predominant de rijit6r6t mili- 
taire. les ressources: considerables et toujours crois- 
santes du recrutement permettent de m6nager, dans 
une large mesure, la population civile, tout en n'in- 
corporant dans les troupes que des jeunes gens 
parfaitement aptes an service anii6. 

Aussi I'autorite militaire jouit-elle de la latitude la 
plus complete dans Vexamen des cas d'ajoumement, 
d^exclusion et de reforme prevus par la loi, 

Vajoumemetit peut resulter, en premier lieu, 
d*une aptitude physique incomplete ; il ne peut 6tre 
prolonge au dela de trois ans. 11 peut aussi etre pro- 
nonce, sUr la demande des interesses ou de leur 
famUlfe, en faveur ; \? des soutiens indispensables 

of my calculations, I will reproduce photograph- 
ically the essential passages of this pamphlet, 
showing: 

1st. That according to German military law 
adjournment of service can only last three 
years. 

2d. That the figures on which I rely are 
really taken from LoeheWs Jahresberichte, which 
is held to be the most authoritative German 
publication. 

If, therefore, Germany had declared war in 
1910, without counting young men who had 
presented themselves in advance, or those she 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 117 

8 fiTAT MILITAIRE DE TOXJTES LES NATIONS 

t6s physiques ou morales ; mais les jeunes gens qui 
ont cherche a se soustraire a robligatiou du service 
par mutilation ou autrement sont vers6s dans les 
sections de travailleurs, 

(Pour le m6canisme et le fonctionnement du service 
de RECRDTEMJENT cu Allcmagne, se reporter d ce mot 
dans le corps du Biciionnaire.) 

Voici, maintenant, un aperQu des r6sultats du re- 
crutement pour Fannie 1910, extraits des LcebeWs 
Jahresherichte (pour 1911 : publics an printemps 
1912), en rappelant que ces operations embrassent 
non seulement les hommes dei la classe incorporable, 
tnais encore les nombreux ajourn^s des classes pr6- 
c^dentes : 

Jeunes gens ayani pris part'^aux operations 
du recrutement. .....■.......*«.. 1.245.363 

donl: 

BxcIms CUnwurdige). ...,». 890 

R6form6s (Untaugliche) , ,.. *. , . 34,067 

Ajouraes , . . . .• 715.952 

Aydflt devancd I'appol. . . . . , 39.960 

l)^Clax6sbonSr . . -. . . * .-. . 454.484 

could make up out of her reforme list, she 
could have utilized in the various branches of 
her mobilized army: 

1st. Men fit for service 454,484 men 

2d. One-third of 715,952. This figure, accord- 
ing to German law, can only include 
3 classes of adjourned, equal, therefore, 
to 238,650 men 

Total 693,134 men 

If, in 1910, Germany, which then had but 
65 millions of inhabitants, could raise a war 
contingent of about 693,000 men, how can it 



lis AN ENDURING VICTORY 

be believed that in 1918, when Germany, from 
the recruiting standpoint, has 70 millions of in- 
habitants, and forms her classes not at 20 but 
at 17 years of age — that is, without having to 
take account of the deaths between 17 and 19 
inclusive — should have a class of only 400,000 
men, that is, about 293,000 less than the war 
class of 1910 ? It is impossible that this should 
be true. 

A serious mistake has therefore been made. 
It is hard to explain logically, because, as we 
have just seen, the figures which prove it were 
published in France, even before the war. The 
only explanation of this extraordinary miscon- 
ception is that it is of the same nature as those 
held by the Entente regarding many other 
problems — the Bulgar question, the question 
about the King of Greece, the question of Aus- 
tria-Hungary, the Bolshevists — all questions on 
which for a long time the Allies were misled by 
superficial preconceived ideas, lacking proof, 
and which events have demonstrated to be as 
contrary to facts as to the interests of the 
Entente. The problem now is to discuss thor- 
oughly the extent of the error committed, and 
in what it consists. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 119 



2d. Objections and Replies. 

1st Objection, — ^The man-power of Germany 
(70 millions of inhabitants) cannot be greater 
than that of the Allies put together (France 40 
millions, England 46, Italy 36, United States 
100), etc. 

Answer, — Certainly this is true, but we must 
compare, not the man-power of the Allies only 
as against that of Germany, but the number 
of Allied soldiers able to serve in Europe, op- 
posed to the man-power of all the Central 
Powers, as, since the war, they form a group of 
forces directed by Berlin, to the advantage of 
Germany, who without them must have yielded 
long ago. By this comparison alone can be 
discerned which are the weak points of the 
effectives of Germany's allies, on which the 
Entente should consequently bring pressure to 
bear. The great successes achieved since the 
Entente finally decided to attack Bulgaria, show 
the absolute necessity of this method of pro- 
cedure. 

M Objection,— The figures of 13,600,000 men, 
which we found to represent the number of the 
entire mobilized German army, and that of 



120 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

700,000 for the German contingent, are so 
much larger than those generally accepted 
that they cannot be correct. 

Answer. — It is unfortunate not only regard- 
ing the German effectives that considerable 
errors, reaching 50 per cent, have been made 
by the Entente on questions nevertheless of 
capital importance for the winning of the war. 
For instance, when the war began the opinion 
prevailed in dominant circles of western Europe 
that Germany had only 50 army corps. Now 
it is a fact that she began the fight with 100, 
that is with 50 more, the existence of which was 
not even suspected. This was clearly recog- 
nized, particularly in several articles which 
appeared in France about two years ago, there- 
fore authorized by the censors. The error, 
very serious at that time, was in this case of 
50 per cent. Granting the above, it is not im- 
possible, a priori, that, instead of estimating 
the annual German contingent at about 700,- 
000 men, it should have been wrongly placed 
at only 400,000. 

3d Objection. — It is improbable, a priori, 
that Germany's man-power should be esti- 
mated at 13,600,000 fighting men. 

Answer. — It is absolutely necessary to come 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 121 

to an understanding as to the meaning one 
should give to the expression man-power, for it 
seems to be imperfectly understood in the 
Entente. 

Many of the Allies, in fact, imagine that the 
man-power of a country consists alone in its 
ability to place so many combatants on the 
firing-line. This idea of man-power is incom- 
plete and gives rise to serious mistakes. An 
army is not made up of fighting men only. At 
the present day, the mobilized army of a state 
comprises innumerable departments; the fight- 
ing units, services immediately behind the 
front, home services, war factories, working of 
mines necessary to the war, sometimes even 
agricultural production, and numbers of bu- 
reaus. Now, all these services, being indis- 
pensable to the working of the army, in 
consequence are equally necessary to victory. 
Soldiers fighting at the front are therefore only 
a part of the man-power required, and their 
number is itself the reflex and the result of 
the strength of the organizations of non- 
combatants in the rear. 

If, further, we should attempt to estimate 
Germany's man-power by counting simply the 
number of fighting men, we should find our- 
selves certainly mistaken. On the one hand. 



122 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

the Allies' information services had to be made 
out of the whole cloth since the war, and have 
therefore inevitable defects; and on the other, 
the Germans are past masters in the art of 
dissimulation. The result is that all the iden- 
tifications that the Allies can make of German 
divisions fighting on the diflPerent fronts, only 
reach an approximation, and leave unreckoned 
elements of the enemy's strength, which it is 
indispensable to take into account. 

For all these reasons, the man-power of a 
nation is represented by the whole number of 
men it is able to mobilize, no matter to what 
service these men are attached. I have taken 
great care to specify (see page 107) that the 
figure of 13,600,000 included, of course, the 
fighting men on the various fronts and those 
in the innumerable service departments of all 
kinds of the German army. 

iih Objection. — Ought not the number of 
13,600,000 to be reduced by 15 to 20 per cent 
to allow for these reformes? 

Answer. — In Germany the number of these 
reformes must be much less than the above 
percentage. The war has been so premedi- 
tated and the study of military things by the 
General Staflf has gone on for such a length of 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 123 

time that it is only natural that of all the bel- 
ligerents Germany should know how to get 
the best results out of the men who come up 
for mobilization. The system by which mo- 
bilized men are utilized in Germany is quite 
unlike that which obtained in France, for in- 
stance, at least during the two first years of 
the war. 

In France, through a false notion of equality 
and of the modern needs of war, in the begin- 
ning, they tried to act on the principle that 
each mobilized man should be exposed to the 
same danger, no matter what might be his par- 
ticular aptitudes. Intellectual power of the 
first rank which could have done much toward 
a speedy victory, was sacrificed to this idea, 
to the great detriment of the common cause. 
Thus, for example, Jean Gravier, who was 
probably the Frenchman who knew most about 
Serbia, because he had long made a special 
study of the country on the spot, was recalled 
to France by the mobilization, and killed as a 
sergeant before Souchez, when he might have 
rendered invaluable services in the Balkans. 
The forces thus uselessly sacrificed have been 
very great, and it was only toward the third 
year of the war that France began to remedy 
this fatal error. 



124 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

If Jean Gravier had been a German he 
would have been assigned as technical adviser 
to the Staff charged to prepare for the inva- 
sion of Serbia, because in Germany, from the 
outbreak of hostilities, the utilization of mobil- 
ized men has been arranged on the principle 
that each man should be employed, not neces- 
sarily where there are the most risks to be 
run, but where his personal aptitudes would 
allow him to render the best service with a 
view to victory. 

The application of this principle explains 
why mobilized Germans, 30 years old, strong 
and well, have been kept away from the 
firing-line and attached at home or abroad to 
propaganda service, from which the Berlin 
government has derived so much advantage. 
Striking examples are the cases of Von Papen 
and Boy-Ed, who were the German officers 
retained as long as possible in the United 
States because Berlin considered that they 
were much more useful to the German cause 
in this way than if they had been killed on the 
western front. 

This principle carried out explains why the 
Germans make reformes of a relatively small 
number of men among those subject to mobil- 
ization. It is, in fact, clear that, with the 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 125 

exception of those seriously ill, any man merely 
weak or delicate who is employed in civil life 
can be used in some sedentary service in one 
of the innumerable departments of the Ger- 
man army. The number of those reformes 
varies according to age, as is shown by the 
following table drawn up according to the 
official figures of German mortality for 1901 
(see page 134). 



Out of 100 


Number of 


Out of 100 


Number of 


Germans of 


Deaths 


Germans of 


Deaths 


1 year 


20.23 


24 years 


0.50 


2 years 


3.98 


25 


i( 


0.50 


3 


a 


1.49 


26 


a 


0.51 


4 


t( 


0.94 


27 


it 


0.52 


5 


it 


0.69 


28 


it 


0.52 


6 


« 


0.52 


29 


it 


0.53 


7 


it 


0.42 


30 


it 


0.54 


8 


(( 


0.35 


31 


it 


0.55 


9 


« 


0.30 


32 


ti 


0.57 


10 


« 


0.26 


33 


it 


0.59 


11 


a 


0.24 


34 


it 


0.62 


12 


« 


0.22 


35 


it 


0.66 


13 


<t 


0.21 


36 


it 


0.70 


14 


(t 


0.21 


37 


it 


0.74 


15 


<s 


0.23 


38 


it 


0.78 


16 


t( 


0.27 


39 


it 


0.83 


17 


a 


0.32 


40 


it 


0.88 


18 


(6 


0.38 


41 


it 


0.91 


19 


« 


0.43 


42 


it 


0.99 


20 


(C 


0.48 


43 


it 


1.05 


21 


<e 


0.50 


44 


It 


1.11 


22 


it 


0.50 


45 


it 


1.17 


23 


it 


0.50 









126 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

This table is very interesting because it 
shows : 

1st. That the mortahty is enormous the 
first year, and great for the second and third 
years. 

2d. That at 45 it is 1.17 per cent. 

3d. That at 16 it is only 0.27 per cent. 

It is therefore evident that those reformes 
among men of 45, already worn, and suffering 
from serious complaints, are much more nu- 
merous than the reformes among young men, 
of just 17, who are full of life. 

Applying the principles which govern the 
German mobilization, which start from the 
theory that every man is of some use, except 
those seriously ill, we can understand how it 
happens that those reformes are relatively 
few, even among men of 45, and fewer still 
among the youths of 17, who in time of war 
constitute each annual German contingent. 

To make this plainer still, let us take, for 
example, 100,000 young Germans 17 years old 
who have come before the examining board to 
form the class of 1920. The reason why so 
few among these youths are reformes is that, 
according to the above figures (see page 125), 
from 16 to 17 the death-rate is only 0.27 per 
cent; that is, that among 400 young Germans 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 127 

of this age only about one dies, because at 16 
or 17 the serious maladies which attack men of 
more advanced years naturally do not exist. 
On the other hand, a sufficiently large number 
of boys of 17 are not yet strong enough physi- 
cally to make good fighting men, but even 
these are quite able to fill useful places in some 
of the numerous branches of the army services, 
work which would not be too exacting for boys 
of that age. In this way, we see how those 
reformes among the youths of 17 who make 
up the war contingent should not exceed 5 
per cent at the most. Allowing this to be 
the probable figure, we will understand how 
the Germans make use of the 95,000 boys of 
17 remaining from the 100,000 whom we have 
supposed as coming before the Kaiser's board 
of examination. 

Out of these 95,000 probably 70,000 are 
strong enough to be sent at once to instruction- 
camps and to the front in six months. The 
remaining 25,000 fall into two categories: The 
first is composed of specialists, workmen: 
miners, mechanics, electricians, tailors, etc. 
The second is formed of young men who need 
to be built up for some months, or perhaps a 
year, before they can be made fighting men. 

The specialized workmen of 17 are sent to 



128 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

different departments or to the workrooms of 
their trades, where they take the places of older 
men who go to the front. As for those who 
need strengthening, they are either sent to 
camps for physical training or divided among 
the different offices where there is sedentary 
work, and where they relieve young men of 
the preceding year who are now strong enough 
to join the fighting force, or older men no 
longer necessary behind the lines, who are 
sent forward. The result of this system is 
that if the 95,000 German soldiers at 17 esti- 
mated in our hypothesis do not at once enter 
the fighting ranks, their numbers make it pos- 
sible to form a rotation from one year to the 
next by means of which men able to fight can 
be taken out of the various services. In this 
way, the military authorities can send to the 
front a number of fighting men virtually equal 
to that of the annual contingent, which thus 
acts as a sort of reservoir, supplying the differ- 
ent branches of the German army, which draws 
upon it as much as possible, allowing for the 
small number reformes. 

5th Objection, — If there had been no war the 
effect of natural causes would have diminished 
the number of men from 17 to 45 years old. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 129 

We should therefore take into account this 
cause of diminution of the German army, 
which must have considerably lowered its 
numbers during the last four years. 

Answer, — Of course deaths from natural 
causes, as in time of peace, would occur among 
men mobilized from 17 to 45, but practically 
the effects of this cause of diminution of the 
German army are confounded with losses pro- 
duced by the war. If a mobilized German 
dies of bronchitis, of pleurisy, or of heart-dis- 
ease, he might certainly have succumbed from 
such causes without the war, but they might 
equally have resulted from it. In any case, 
nothing is known about it, and nothing can be 
found out, because every mobilized soldier in 
the German army, if he falls ill, is sent to a 
military hospital. If he dies, from no matter 
what cause, his death is included among the 
war losses reckoned above, as we have seen, 
including a constant figure of 500,000 men in 
hospital (see page 108). 

6th Objection, — If the German army in- 
creased by about 700,000 men each year, we 
must reckon also an annual loss of men re- 
leased from military service, on reaching the 
age of 45 inclusive. 



130 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Answer, — ^This would be true in peace-time, 
but not in war. In France military service is 
obligatory up to the end of the 48th year, but 
now mobilized men have been kept with the 
colors beyond this age; this is why France has 
had soldiers more than 50 years old who have 
gone back only recently to civil life. In Ger- 
many, also, men have been kept in the service 
at more than 45 years of age, and therefore 
this cause for the diminution of the German 
army, in which many Allies believe, does not 
really exist. 

7th Objection. — Is not the estimate of 13,600,- 
000 men, based on 20 per cent of the popula- 
tion, too high a figure.? 

Answer, — 1st. There is nothing extraordi- 
nary in the mobilization figure of 20 per cent 
of the German population. Even little Serbia 
with her rudimentary organization mobilized 
at 14 per cent of her inhabitants in 1912-13. 
The Germans' theory of mobilization enables 
them to get the best possible results from their 
resources in man-power, their powers of organ- 
ization are not to be doubted, and therefore we 
ought not to be surprised that they can mobilize 
at 20 per cent of their people, dividing the men 
among the many branches of their service. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 131 

2d. This figure only gives a difference of 
about 600,000 men, against that stated by 
General de Lacroix in an article published in 
the Paris Temps nearly two years ago, in which 
he studies the numbers yielded by the Ger- 
man mobilization. Thus, the amount of 
13 millions has been fixed by the ex-generalis- 
simo of the French armies, after proper de- 
ductions for reformes. 

3d. This sum of 13 millions, fixed by Gen- 
eral de Lacroix, is drawn from the year 1914, 
when the population of Germany was only 
68 millions, but in 1918, from the recruiting 
point of view, she had 70 million inhabitants. 

4th. As we know, men at the close of their 
45th year are theoretically free from all mili- 
tary obligations, but they have been kept with 
the colors during the war, and thus the Ger- 
man army has increased beyond the limits 
which were at first set. 

5th. The statistics of the German Empire 
only give the number of German subjects pres- 
ent in Germany, and the German effectives 
are generally calculated with this number only 
in view, forgetting that there are, besides, many 
Germans scattered all over the world who are 
subjects of the empire, and therefore those 
from 17 to the end of the 45th year owe mili- 



132 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

tary service to Germany. Owing to the Allied 
blockade, it is true that nearly all Germans 
of this category living in America, Africa, or 
Asia have not been able to reach Germany to 
perform their military duty, but, per contra, 
some German subjects living abroad have cer- 
tainly obeyed the order of mobilization since 
the beginning of hostilities. These Germans 
are those domiciled either in countries allied 
to Germany — Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey — or in countries occupied by German 
troops, such as Serbia, Roumania, Belgium, and 
Russia. There are besides those in states in 
direct geographic contact with Germany, like 
Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and 
Norway, or in European countries which were 
for a time neutral, like Italy and Spain. 

The statistics of the Alldeutscher Atlas, by 
Paul Langhans, published in 1900 at Gotha, 
by Justus Perthes, enable us to calculate the 
number of Germans living abroad under con- 
ditions which would certainly have allowed 
them to join the German army. 

German subjects of the empire resident in — 

Austria 103,433 

Hungary 6,597 

Switzerland 112,342 

Luxemburg 10,712 

Belgium 47,338 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 133 

HoUand 28,767 

Denmark 31,107 

Sweden 4,066 

Norway 1,471 

Russia 60,000 

Italy 25,000 

Spain 1326 

Total 432,659 

In round numbers 432,000 

These figures, however, date from a period 
reaching from 1888 to 1898, on the average 
from 1893. From this date till 1918, that is, 
for 25 years, this total should be augmented 
in proportion to the mean annual increase of 
the German population. 

In 1910, according to the figures of the 
Almanack de Gotha above cited (page 103), 
Germany had exactly 64,925,993 inhabitants, 
and at this date her population increased by 
636,335 = 9.8 per 1,000 inhabitants. There- 
fore during 25 years — without even counting 
the progressive increase, which gives higher 
figures — the augmentation per 1,000 is 245; 
say, for 432,000 it would be 105,840, which, 
added to 432,000 in 1893, proves that in 1918 
there were about 537,840 Germans— 538,000 
in round numbers — in foreign countries who 
could have joined the German army. 

On the other hand, the proportion of males 
from 17 to 45 is at least 21 per cent of a whole 



134 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

population; consequently, the 538,000 Germans 
living in neighboring states must have furnished 
to the German army 112,980 men — about 
113,000 in round numbers. 

To sum up, the foregoing five reasons justify 
amply the number of 600,000 in excess of 13 
million men at which General de Lacroix esti- 
mated the yield of the German mobilization. 

8ih Objection, — ^The number of births in 
Germany in 1901 was £,032,000 — that is, about 
1 million of males. The Carlisle insurance 
tables state that in 20 years there will remain 
only 600,000 men out of this million. If those 
in the reformes class are deducted from this 
figure, it is therefore impossible that the Ger- 
man moyen (average) war contingent could 
have reached 700,000 men. 

Answer. — ^This objection appears very strong, 
but in reality it only shows, on the part of 
those who make it, a complete misunderstand- 
ing of the nature of an insurance company, 
and of the conditions under which should be 
accepted the mortality of a country in esti- 
mating its man-power. 

The Carlisle insurance computations show 
that in 1,000,000 of men only 600,000 sub- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 135 

sisted at the age of 20; this would seem to 
mean that the death-rate for the first 20 years 
is 40 per cent, but this is a much higher figure 
than that of the German death-rate at the age 
of 20, as we shall prove by a German authority 
of the most conclusive kind, quoted later. 

We must be careful also to note that we 
cannot trust to tables of mortality drawn up 
for insurance to discuss questions of man- 
power, and for the following reason : To avoid 
risks to which they are exposed, insurance 
companies, in making their tables, take ac- 
count of special considerations which have 
nothing at all to do with fitness for military 
service. To know how many youths of a 
generation can pass a physical examination, 
the only tables we need to consult are those 
of the general mortality of the country whose 
contingent is in question. 

According to the French annual statistics 
for 1913 (2d part, page 168) there were in 
Germany, in 1901, 2,032,000 births— the fe- 
males slightly more numerous than the males — 
therefore, in round numbers, 1,000,000 boys. 

On the other hand, the general mortality in 
Germany from 1901 to 1910 for the male sex 
is shown by official figures on page 34 of the 
Statistisches Jahrbuch filr das Deutsche Reich, 



136 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

published by Putkammer & Muhlbrecht, Ber- 
lin, 1915. 

Of 100,000 births— 

At 1 year there are 79,766 survivors and 20,234 deaths 

" 76,585 
" 75,442 
" 74,727 
" 74,211 
" 73,820 
" 73,506 
" 73,244 
" 73,023 
" 72,827 
" 72,650 
" 72,487 
" 72,334 
" 72,179 
" 72,007 

At the end of the — 



2; 


years 


3 


« 


4 


« 


5 


« 


6 


(C 


7 


« 


8 


it 


9 


it 


10 


it 


11 


tt 


12 


tt 


13 


it 


14 


tt 


15 


a 



it 


3,181 


tt 


1,143 


it 


715 


tt 


516 


tt 


391 


tt 


314 


if 


262 


tt 


221 


tt 


196 


it 


177 


tt 


163 


tt 


153 


it 


155 


(f 


172 



16th year there are 71,808 survivors and 199 deaths 

17th " " " 71,573 " " 235 " 

18th " " " 71,300 " " 273 " 

19th " " " 70,989 " " 311 " 

As this oflBcial German report gives in the 
two first columns of the table ages and sur- 
vivors, it is easy to deduce the number of 
deaths at each age, according to government 
figures. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 137 

Out of 100 boys born in Germany, at 19 
years of age there were — 

29.011 per cent deaths 
Leaving 70.989 " *' survivors 

To be exact, 100.000 per cent 

But to make a calculation with an immediate 
practical interest we should finally consider 
the death-rate at the end of the 16th year, as 
it is from boys of just 17 years of age that the 
annual German class is formed in war-time. 
Thus at the end of the 16th year out of 100 
boys born in Germany there are — 

28.192 per cent deaths 
71.808 " " survivors 



Which gives just 100.000 per cent 

These figures are the best procurable on 
German mortality. 

Let us first examine the result with reference 
to the number of 754,000 men, which we found 
to be (see page 105) that of the theoretic mili- 
tary contingent of Germany in 1918. We 
assume that this class was composed of young 
men of 20, because according to the figures of 
the German report on which we based our cal- 



138 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

culations, the class of 1910 was formed in a 
period of peace from young men of 20, and 
besides included all young Germans living 
abroad who in that year were theoretically 
able to return to Germany. Now, in 1901 
there were in Germany about 1,000,000 male 
births. The mortality at the completion of 
the 19th year was 29.011 per cent; therefore, 
out of this total 290,011 died, and 709,989 
survived. To this we should add the number 
of young Germans, sons of German subjects 
of the empire living in foreign European coun- 
tries (see page 133). 

This figure can be verified with sufiicient 
accuracy. If the German war contingent was 
700,000 in 1910 — a round number which we 
reached (see page 103) through German reports 
when Germany had only 65 million inhabi- 
tants, it follows that 1,000 Germans yield 
about 10.76 men to the annual draft. On 
this basis the 113,000 Germans abroad, whose 
children are so situated geographically that 
they are able to feed the German army (see 
page 134), furnish to the annual contingent 
1,215 men. 

We know, therefore, that in 1918 the Ger- 
man examining boards had before them 709,989 
+ 1,215 = 711,204 young Germans about 19 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 139 

years old. From this we should deduct 5 per 
cent for those reformes who for reasons above 
indicated (page 127) probably do not exceed 
that rate. We must then deduct for those re- 
formes 35,560 men, leaving certainly about 
675,644— in round numbers, 676,000— boys 20 
years old absolutely fit to make up Germany's 
war contingent for 1918. We reached (see 
page 105) the number of 754,000, which gives 
a diflference of 78,000 men, but this difference 
can be to a great extent logically explained. 

We see by the Alldeutscher Atlas that in 1893 
there were of German subjects of the empire: 

In America 2,842,744 

" Asia 2,366 

" Africa 3,877 

" Australia 43,861 

Total 2,892,848 

Out of this number, since 1895, a part of 
these German subjects have become natural- 
ized citizens of the countries where they live. 
It is difficult to arrive at the exact number, but 
allowing that it amounts to about a third, say, 
964,282 of our total, there remain 1,928,566. 
From 1893 to 1918, that is, for 25 years, this 
last figure has been augmented in proportion 
to the average increase in the German popu- 



140 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

lation, which is annually 9.8 per 1,000 = say, 
18,894 per year, and therefore for 25 years 
472,350; consequently, our total in 1893 of 
1,928,566, in 1918 becomes 2,400,000 in round 
numbers. 

In addition, as we have shown (page 104), 
that 1,000 Germans furnish about 10.76 men 
to the annual German contingent, it follows 
that the 2,400,000 German subjects in Amer- 
ica, Asia, Africa, and Australia could have 
yielded an annual contingent to the empire 
amounting to 25,824 men, or 26,000 in round 
numbers — if their children of military age 
could have reached Germany. We noted 
(page 102) that deferred service is permitted 
in Germany in favor of young Germans liv- 
ing abroad. It is nearly certain, therefore, 
that these 26,000 German youths, outside of 
Europe, must have been included in the fig- 
ure of 238,650 men for deferred service of the 
year 1910 (see page 103) and consequently 
form part of our total of 754,000 which we 
reached for the contingent of 1918, starting 
from the figures of Germany's annual report 
for 1910. 

We should then subtract these 26,000 young 
Germans living in America, Asia, Africa, and 
Australia from the number of 754,000 men, 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 141 

as, the communication by sea with Germany 
being cut, they have certainly not been able 
to reach that country and contribute to the 
contingent of 1918. This figure 26,000 reduces 
by just so much the difference of 78,000 that 
we found between the number of 754,000 men 
and the estimate of 676,000 we made by means 
of the tables of mortality. This difference, 
therefore, is not more than 78,000 minus 
26,000, or 52,000 men, which one must admit 
is a discrepancy, or a mistake if you choose 
to call it so, which is very slight for a figure 
like 754,000 and a calculation of this sort. 

We must furthermore bear in mind that in 
reality if all the Germans overseas had been 
able to defer their mobilization orders this dif- 
ference would probably even then be less than 
52,000 men. As a matter of fact, I have esti- 
mated at one-third the Germans, subjects of 
the Empire in foreign countries, who within 
twenty-five years have been naturalized in 
their foreign residence without reckoning on 
the fact that according to Delbruck's law 
naturalized Germans can secretly preserve or 
resume their condition as subjects of the Ger- 
man Empire and as such become subject to 
German military service. 



142 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Let us again make use of the mortality tables 
to analyze, no longer in theory, but in practice, 
the military contingent of Germany in 1918, 
remembering that now it is made up of youths, 
not of 20 years of age, as in peace-times, but 
of boys completing their 16th year — that is, 
just 17. 

The German death-rate being 28.192 per 
cent at the end of the 16th year, out of 1,000,000 
boys born in 1901, 281,920 die at 17. The 
number of survivors in 1918 is, therefore, 
718,080, and to this we must add 1,200 young 
Germans contributing to the annual contin- 
gent as subjects of the empire living in foreign 
European countries (see page 138). 

718,080 + 1,200 make 719,280—720,000 in 
round numbers, who come up before the Ger- 
man examining boards in 1918. Deducting 5 
per cent, say, 36,000, for those reformeSy there 
remain in 1918 720,000 - 36,000 = 684,000 
young Germans who are certainly capable of 
service in the various branches of the German 
army. This is within 16,000 of the figure of 
700,000, which was our estimate for the Ger- 
man contingent, in round numbers. This dif- 
ference is relatively insignificant, therefore a 
thorough scrutiny shows that my figures of 
13,600,000 men for the entire mobilized Ger- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 143 

man army in June, 1918, and 700,000 in round 
numbers for the annual contingent of the 
same year, are by no means an exaggeration, 
but as close as possible to the truth. 

One error alone in the preceding calculations 
consists in the estimation of the sum of the 
four military contingents of 1915-18 at 2,900,- 
000 men (see page 109), while at the least in 
round numbers they come to 700,000, say, 
2,800,000, for the four contingents. 

The only effect of this mistake on the num- 
ber of absolute losses of Germany, which we 
calculated in June, 1918, is tjiat instead of 
having been for each of the four years of war 
at least 600,000 men annually, they have been 
625,000. 

But in the general discussion of German 
man-power it is well to keep this mistake in 
mind. No war can be managed without mis- 
takes, and these are of two kinds, the helpful 
and the injurious. In order to be sure that we 
are not deceived in war-time, we must sys- 
tematically try to make only helpful mistakes, 
that is, those which tend to overestimate the 
enemies' forces, and in this way we are led to 
make the most strenuous efforts, which lead 
to a more speedy victory. Therefore, if the 
minutest calculations show that 100,000 men 



144 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

are necessary for an operation, it is best to 
allow for it 125,000, so as to get the advantage 
of the helpful mistake. That is why in discus- 
sing the German reserves it is more to the 
interest of the Entente to err on the side of 
estimating the German losses at 600,000 men 
a year, than to believe that they were 625,000. 
In a case like this the error is advantageous 
to the Allies, while a miscalculation in the 
opposite direction might lead to the worst 
consequences. 

In conclusion, practical proofs can be added 
to the results of our calculations to make it 
certain that Germany is not yet in so much 
need of men as too many among the Allies 
believe. 

The Temps of August 7th, 1916, quotes the 
following intercepted letter from a man in the 
76th Landwehr, dated June 16th: "I am still 
at Kief," he says; "the people are so hostile 
to us that they would make an end of us if 
they could, but there are too many German 
and Austrian troops here, so they can do 
nothing. There are police posts everywhere." 

We see by this letter that there were still 
many Germans in Russia, and in addition Le 
Journal de Geneve — quoted by the Temps on 
August 30th, 1918 — summed up various state- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 145 

ments made by travellers who had recently 
made some stay in Germany, as follows: 

"Militarily Germany seems to us still very 
strong, and in no need of men. Even after the 
great Allied offensives, the large cities are full 
of men on leave." 

Would not this lead any fair-minded, unprej- 
udiced person to see that mistakes existed 
and are still made among the Allies as to the 
numbers of the forces of Germany, and that it 
is to the great advantage of the Entente, in 
order to avert any surprise and win the war 
with speed and certainty, that these mistakes 
should be corrected ? 

In any case, these different statements lead 
to the following practical results: 

1st. It was unreasonable, therefore ex- 
tremely dangerous, for the Allies to believe that 
they could win the war only through the ex- 
haustion of the German reserves, reduced by 
battles on the western front, a theory of Colonel 
Repington's which was shared by many Allies, 
who still hold this opinion. This way of think- 
ing does not make success impossible, but it 
tends to prolong the war enormously, as has 
actually happened, for if Repington had been 
right the war would have been over long since. 



146 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

2d. The Allies must be convinced that mili- 
tary action should not be limited to the west 
front, but that the value of the other war-fields, 
those of Italy and Salonika, should also be 
thoroughly understood. The far-reaching suc- 
cessful effects of the rapid advance of the Allied 
army in Serbia, though obtained with rela- 
tively small forces, are a striking proof of this. 

3d. The Allies must be persuaded that, to 
bring victory quickly and with lighter burdens 
in men and money, it is absolutely necessary 
to have recourse not only to military strategy, 
but also to political strategy, which enables 
them to act even within the boundaries of Pan- 
germany in order for the common good to 
work upon the numerous weaknesses there to 
be found. That this view is correct is proved 
by the insurrection which has already taken 
place in Bohemia and is extending in all the 
Slav and Latin regions of Austria-Hungary, 
greatly facilitating the penetration of Allied 
troops into Central Europe. 

IV. 

In order that Allied public opinion may 
appreciate the immense importance of the 
complete success of the Entente operations in 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 147 

the Balkans in October, 1918, and may grasp 
the absolute necessity of using this situation 
to the fullest extent without delay — a course 
calculated to hasten in a considerable degree 
the complete defeat of Germany — it is neces- 
sary to call to mind again what were approxi- 
mately the probable mobilized forces of Pan- 
germany at the beginning of August, 1918, 
the opening of the fifth year of war. 

Germany alone could not make head against 
the Entente. She has only done so by the 
help of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Tur- 
key, whose armies were controlled from Berlin. 
The troops of these powers held central Europe, 
the Balkans, and southern Russia, thus assur- 
ing to Germany the food and material neces- 
sary to her war industries, and leaving her 
free to concentrate all her energies on the 
western front. To know nearly what total 
forces were probably at the disposal of the 
German General Staff, we must now scrutinize 
the strength of Pangermany, that is, the Ger- 
man Empire and its allies. 

We have seen (page 109) that after four 
years of war the actual forces of Germany, 
mobilized on the basis of 20 per cent of the 
inhabitants, amounted to 11 millions of men. 



148 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

This is in round numbers, deduction being 
made of actual definitive losses up to June 
1st, 1918. We come to the conclusion (page 
111) that these German war losses — taking 
into computation the annual number of re- 
cruits — amounted in four years to 2,400,000 
men. This represents a diminution of 176 in 
1,000 in proportion to the figure for the gen- 
eral mobilization of Germany, which we placed 
at 13,600,000 men. This valuation will bring 
us probably close to the truth, if used as a 
basis from which to estimate the military con- 
dition of Germany and her allies before the 
catastrophe of Bulgaria. 

In 1914, the population of Austria-Hungary 
was about 50 millions, exclusive of foreigners, 
Bulgaria had 5 millions, and Turkey 20; but 
the Ottoman mobilization was not extended 
to Arabia, for the most part in rebellion, 
and the presence of British troops in Bagdad 
and Jerusalem hampers the action of the Con- 
stantinople authorities; also great numbers of 
Greeks and Armenians massacred by the Turks 
obviously could not be included in the figures 
of the Ottoman mobilization. For these 
reasons, and to keep well within the mark, 
we will place the mobilization list in Turkey 
at half the population, about 10 million men. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 149 

It is certain that Germany made as great 
demands on the man-power of her alHes as 
those she accepted for herseK. It is, there- 
fore, reasonable to assume that the basis of 
mobihzation in Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, 
and Turkey was the same as in Germany, viz. : 
20 in 100 inhabitants, hence — 

Austria-Hungary would have mobilized 10 million men. 
Bulgaria would have mobilized 1 million men. 

Turkey would have mobilized 2 million men. 

For these three countries the losses from 
the war must have been approximately those of 
Germany herself. Keeping the true propor- 
tion in mind, the Bulgars, up to August, 1918, 
were in much the same military condition; the 
Austrians have not fought so many battles, but 
they have lost many more prisoners, for the 
Czechs and the Jugo-Slavs pressed into the 
Austrian armies gave themselves up by hun- 
dreds of thousands to the Russians and Ser- 
bians. Comparing the Turks with the Ger- 
mans, fewer have been killed, but their inferior 
sanitary organization had led to a high death- 
rate from disease, which equalized the losses. 

For these different reasons the number of 
mobilized effectives of Germany's aUies can 
be reduced in the proportion of 176 to 1,000, 



150 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

which represents the really definitive losses of 
the German army at the end of the fourth 
year. 

Austria-Hungary... 10,000,000 - 1,760,000 = 8,240,000 men. 

Bulgaria 1,000,000 - 176,000 = 824,000 men. 

Turkey 2,000,000 - 352,000 = 1,648,000 men. 

Total 10,712,000 men. 

This gives the probable number of mobilized 
men at the disposal of Germany's allies, Au- 
gust 1st, 1918, including not only fighting 
men, but also those attached to all other 
branches of the war service, direct or indirect. 
We may allow that these together amount to 
11 millions, which added to 11 millions already 
attributed to Germany gives a total of 22 
millions of men marching under the orders of 
Berlin. We shall see later on that these 11 
millions furnished by Germany's friends were 
not entirely a source of strength to the staff 
at Berlin, but through thein. Pangermany was 
vulnerable in many ways, from the beginning 
of the war indeed, if the Entente knew how to 
act so as to take advantage of it. 

V. 

The summary of the new sources of effec- 
tives on which Germany could freely draw, if 
the Bulgarian collapse had not taken place 



PANGERMANY^S MILITARY STRENGTH 151 

goes to show (1) how the AlHed successes in 
the Balkans, by bringing about the impotence 
of Turkey, made it impossible for Germany 
from that time on to deal successfully with 
the sources of Mussulman eflPectives; (2) the 
absolute necessity that the Allies should bring 
about such a peace that it should be entirely 
impossible for Germany to deal with the Rus- 
sian masses, sources of considerable numbers 
of effectives, which are still in a great degree 
subject to the influence of German recruiting 
agents. 

The ever-increasing number of Americans 
landing in France has forced the Teutons to 
modify their plans. We see that they have 
been forced to abandon the hope of a rapid 
advance on Paris and the Channel coasts, 
and thence have been driven to take up the 
defensive tactics on the western front, which 
has become a much more emphatic retreat 
since the Bulgarian disaster has begun to make 
its favorable results felt. But if this event 
had not taken place Berlin, fertile in re- 
sources, would have looked to the east for 
means to parry the blow dealt by the United 
States. What these means were we may pos- 
sibly discover. 



152 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Among the many consequences of the mili- 
tary disintegration of Russia is the fact that 
Germany has been brought into direct contact 
with new recruiting-grounds in Europe and 
Asia, from which she would have drawn as 
largely and quickly as possible, hence the Allies 
would have had to face a new and great danger. 

Let us first inquire who are the people from 
among whom Germany could have recruited 
her armies, directly or through the help of Tur- 
key, if Central Pangermany had continued to 
exist in its entirety. (See map, p. 154.) 

In the Christian population of Russia men 
or allies would be most readily drawn from — 

1. Germans, Russian subjects: about 2,400,000 

2. Finns, about 3,100,000 

3. Ukrainians, about 30,000,000 

Total 35,500,000 

Among the Moslem populations in the Eu- 
ropean and Asiatic provinces of Russia an 
intense Turkish propaganda was going on, 
nominally based on the idea of the solidarity 
of the Turanian race, but really emanating 
from Berlin by way of Constantinople; there- 
fore Germany could have drawn men from — 

1. The Tartars, about 5,000,000 

2. The Caucasians, about 1,600,000 

3. The Bashkirs, about 1,800,000 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 153 

4. The Kirghiz, about 6,000,000 

5. The Turkomans, about 400,000 

6. Turks and other Moslem peoples 3,000,000 

Total 17,800,000 

In Asia, beyond the Russian frontier, Ger- 
many could have secured help from — 

1. Persian Mussulmans, about 9,000,000 

2. Afghan Mussulmans, about 5,000,000 

3. Northern Indian Mussulmans, about. . 66,000,000 

4. Chinese Mussulmans, about 30,000,000 

Total 110,000,000 

There may be, then, 35 + 18 + 110, say 163 mil- 
lions of men, in round numbers, among whom — 
owing to the suppression of the Russian front 
— Germany could have found means of various 
kinds to assist her in carrying on the war. 

The Germans certainly could not have hoped 
to draw effectives from such populations in 
proportion to their size; also the military 
qualities of these people vary considerably, 
and the use that could be made of soldiers 
thus recruited would depend much on geo- 
graphical situation. 

For instance, Persians as a rule do not make 
good soldiers, but in Aserbedjan there are 
about 400,000 men from whom might be formed 
a first-rate army. Afghans are all warlike, 
and German influence was so strong among 



154 



AN ENDURING VICTORY 




PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 155 

them that the Emir recently sent an ambassa- 
dor to Berlin, in sign of friendship. In north- 
ern India the Moslems have hitherto been 
loyal to England, but the Pan-Islam agitation 
as well as the attitude of their Afghan neigh- 
bors might have inclined them in a German 
direction; also German influence has been at 
work for years among the 30 millions of Chi- 
nese Mussulmans, with the view of counter- 
balancing the part of China which leans 
toward the Entente. In central Asia there 
are the Bashkirs, Turkomans, Kirghiz, and 
Tartars, who could furnish excellent troops, 
well-placed geographically to act against the 
Trans-Siberian (see map), as their provinces 
border on it for nearly its whole length. 

For its operations in Europe the Berlin 
General Staff could have found soldiers: 

1st. Among the 30 millions of Ukrainians — 
this was already begun — and a good many 
Ukrainian officers are still being instructed in 
Germany. 

2d. Among the 3 millions of Finns, the ma- 
jority of whom are strongly Germanophile, and 
above all among the 23^ millions of Germans, 
subjects of the former Russian Empire, but as 
Pangermanist as the Germans of Berlin them- 
selves. 



156 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

We thus see how the Bolshevist treachery 
had opened fresh sources of supphes for Prus- 
sian armies, and these recruits would have 
helped Germany to consolidate her new pos- 
sessions in eastern Europe and Asia. As we 
have stated above, Germany's annual loss in 
men — ^in proportion to her first mobilization — 
was about 600,000, and if she could have 
drawn on all the sources of effectives pointed 
out above she could have made up her losses 
at least in part, thus resolving the problem of 
eflfectives once more in her own favor and 
finding a way to offset the American forces. 
But the strategic success of the Allies in the 
Balkans by the taking of Nish and of the 
Danube put it almost entirely out of the power 
of Turkey to be a dangerous source of new 
Mussulman effectives. It only remains to cut 
oflF Germany from Russia by creating a Po- 
land and a Bohemia so strongly organized 
that in the future Germany can no longer 
have any dealings with Russian troops. 

VI. 

Let us now point out how the Allied victory 
in the Balkans, if we know how to develop it 
quickly in the direction of Vienna-Prague-Ber- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 157 

lin, will solve the problem of eflfectives def- 
initely and peremptorily in favor of the Allies. 

The positions heretofore established will al- 
low us now to answer this all-important ques- 
tion: Would the Entente have been — even 
with the help of American troops to the great- 
est extent we can imagine in 1919 — certain 
to have on the European battle-field forces 
superior to those of the Central Powers if she 
had been content to fight on the western 
front? The greater part of the Allies have 
believed this. Their conviction has received 
powerful confirmation in the eyes of Ameri- 
cans by the statements of General Peyton C. 
March, chief of the United States General 
Staff, before the House Committee on Mili- 
tary Affairs, in Washington. He said: "If 
you put 80 divisions of Americans in France 
of approximately 45,000 men to a division, you 
will give marked superiority in rifle-power, and 
we should be able to bring the war to a suc- 
cessful conclusion in 1919." 

The New York Times, as late as August 30th, 
1918, published the following: 

"The efforts of the Allied Powers and the 
United States," General March said, "would 
be confined to actual fighting on the western 



158 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

front, where the war would be won or lost, 
without taking into consideration conditions 
in Russia." 

Let us see if it was true, as many of us be- 
lieved, that the American assistance on the 
western front certainly assured man-power and 
complete victory to the Entente, without the 
need to consider seriously the situation, not of 
Russia only, but of the whole of Europe behind 
the western front and especially in the Balkans. 

In order to reach as close an approximation 
to the truth as possible with the aid of suc- 
cessive deductions, we will proceed as follows: 

We will first estimate at the highest allow- 
able figure the mobilized forces of the Entente. 
In order to do so we will assume that the Eu- 
ropean Allies who were still in control of their 
own territory, that is. Great Britain, France, 
Italy, Portugal, and Greece, had made as 
stupendous efforts as Germany and her allies, 
and had mobiUzed on a basis of 20 per cent 
of their population. We will allow also that 
in four years the Allies have suffered losses 
proportionally identical with those of the 
Germans. We will take the figures for mobili- 
zation obtained from the European Allies, on 
the basis of 20 per cent of their population, 
and reduce them by 176 in 1,000, a figure 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 159 

which, as we have seen above (page 148), rep- 
resents probably the really definitive losses of 
the German army after four years of war. 
This figure being laid down after compensa- 
tion of war losses by the annual military con- 
tingents of Germany, the amount of the Allies' 
loss that we shall reach will be for them also 
the sum of losses taken, not from their popu- 
lation, but from their armies alone, these latter 
having been fed as in the case of the German 
army during the last four years, by four an- 
nual levies, which have filled up to a consid- 
erable extent gaps made by the war. 

By subtracting the actual definitive losses of 
each Allied state from the amount of its first 
mobilization — which we will suppose at the 
maximum, we reach the greatest possible 
number of Allied soldiers which would have 
been ready to march at the opening of the fifth 
year of war. 

To make sure of these figures we will not 
count colonial contingents of the European 
Allies, though they have been of great value. 

1st. Because there was no conscription in 
Ireland, in spite of the fact that her popula- 
tion (4,400,000) is included in that of Great 
Britain, on which our estimates of the total 
British mobilization are based. 



160 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

2d. Both France and England were obliged 
to maintain large forces in their colonies — this 
is especially true of India — and the conse- 
quences of these two drawbacks diminish in 
'a striking degree the effective assistance ren- 
dered by Anglo-French colonials in the Eu- 
ropean war-field. 

As mobilization in the United States is not 
based on population, to the total obtained 
of the Allied European forces mobilized at 
the threshold of the fifth year of war we must 
add 4 millions of Americans as the maximum 
number which the United States is pledged 
to place in Europe by the end of 1919. On 
account of the diflSculties of marine transport 
and food-supply, the presence in France in 
August, 1918, of 1,500,000 American soldiers 
was a remarkable feat, but it will be a new 
world's wonder if the United States by July, 
1919, succeeds in transporting and victualling 
in Europe 4 millions of men, according to 
promise. If, then, we include in our present 
calculations 4 millions of American soldiers 
who cannot land in Europe before July, 1919, 
and proceed as we have done in the case of 
the European Allies, we are certain to put 
at the highest possible figure the man-pov/er 
which the Allies would have been able to 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 161 

oppose to the 22 millions of mobilized troops 
of the Central Powers; which figure we fixed 
as the probable one in August, 1918, and 
reached by the foregoing methods (page 150). 
Reckoning in the same way, we obtain the 
following table: 



Population of Entente 
countries 


Supposed mobiliza- 
tion at 20 per cent 


Supposed losses, 176 
in 1,000, to be de- 
ducted from first 
mobilization 


Total man-pow- 
er of Allies in 
the fifth year of 
the war 


Great Britain. .46 

France 40 

Italy 36 

Portugal 6 

Greece 4 

Americans 


9,200,000 - 
8,000,000 - 
7,200,000 - 
1,200,000 - 
800,000 - 


1,619,200 = 

1,408,000 = 

1,267,200 = 

211,200 = 

140,800 = 


7,580,800 
6,592,000 
5,932,800 
988,800 
659,200 
4,000,000 








25,753,600 



If this were correct, in 1919 the Allies would 
have in round numbers 26 millions of mobi- 
lized men against 22 millions of the Central 
Empires. Hence, under the most favorable 
circumstances, the Allies as a whole could 
have only 4 million more men altogether than 
the Central Powers. That is to say, a num- 
ber equal to 118 Allied mobilized against 100 in 
the mobilized armies directed from Berlin. It 
is already plain that this Allied advantage in 
men of 18 per 100 was too small to be held as 



162 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

an absolute guaranty of victory by weight of 
numbers alone. But we will now show that 
this numerical superiority of the Allies did not 
really exist, for the following reasons: 

1st reason. It is well known that in July, 
1918, there were many more prisoners of the 
European Allies in Germany than there were 
Teuton prisoners in AUied hands. This larger 
amount of AUied prisoners leads naturally to 
the supposition that the losses on our side 
have probably been proportionally greater 
during four years of war than those of the 
Central Powers. If this is so, it follows that 
the Allies have in comparison with the Teutons 
an excess of losses which does not show in 
our table, but which in fact diminished by just 
so much the man-power of the Entente. 

2d reason. The European Allies certainly 
have not mobilized their population on a 20- 
per-cent basis. Neither Portugal nor Greece 
could go above 10 per cent, and even this has 
not been certainly reached. 

3d reason. Even if Great Britain, France, 
and Italy, like the Central Powers, mobihzed 
at the ratio of 20 per cent of their population, 
the Entente countries could not draw from 
their enlistments an amount of fighting men 
proportionally equal to that of Germany. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 163 

This was so because the scarcity of labor in 
Allied countries has driven them to use in their 
munition factories a much larger proportion 
of their enrolled men than was the case in 
the Central Empires. The Germans and their 
allies had at least 4 millions of prisoners and 
50 millions of Allied subjects held as slaves, 
from whom they drew free labor for their war 
factories, and which left them at liberty to 
send to the firing-line a proportion of their 
enrolled men undoubtedly greater than was 
possible to the great Allied states. 

These three reasons ought to convince us 
that the advantage of 18 per cent in man- 
power which our table leads us to think we 
possessed over the enemy was not founded on 
fact. Even if we imagine the 4 millions of 
American soldiers were already landed in 
Europe, the most favorable estimates could 
not assure us that during the fifth year of the 
war the Entente could have counted on man- 
power in excess of that of the Central Empires, 
if Central Pangermany had been able to hold 
out. But the Bulgarian defeat brought about 
by its consequences the exclusion of Turkey 
and of Austria-Hungary. The problem of ef- 
fectives was then at once completely solved. 
At last directing their attacks on the weak ele- 



164 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

ments of the effectives marching under the or- 
ders of Berlin, the AUies eliminated them from 
the conflict and on this head secured a crushing 
superiority of numbers. Such is one of the 
enormous profits that the Entente derives from 
the Balkan operations. 

VII. 

The great Allied successes in the Balkans, 
beginning in October, 1918, show that if the 
decisive importance of the Danube front and of 
political strategy had been understood in 1915 
the war might have been ended long since by 
a complete victory. 

To convince ourselves of this let us con- 
sider first the teachings of the past. 

First example. Austro-Germany went into 
the struggle with 68 + 50, that is, 118 millions 
of inhabitants, against a coalition comprising 
273 millions of people: Russia 182 millions of 
inhabitants, England 46 millions, France 40, 
Serbia 5. The Berlin General StaflF saw at 
once that to counterbalance such a dispro- 
portion in numbers the help of Bulgaria and 
Turkey would be needful. This determina- 
tion to solve the man-power problem in Ger- 
many's favor was one of the reasons for the 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 165 

destruction of Serbia at the end of 1915, for 
it was Serbia which blocked Germany's road 
to the sources of eastern man-power in Ger- 
manophile countries. 

I pointed out the particular object of this 
operation at the time it was begun, in an ar- 
ticle which appeared October 23d, 1915, in 
the Paris Illustration, where I said: 

"Let us now suppose the intervention of 
the Franco-English Allies via Salonika having 
failed, that the Germans can reap the greatest 
possible advantage from direct and permanent 
communications with Turkey. They can thus 
obtain a considerable number of fresh effec- 
tives. ... In fact, this Turco-German junc- 
tion, besides implying the destruction of 
350,000 fine Serbian soldiers-^who, fighting 
their own battle at the same time gave 
valuable help to the general cause of the Allies 
by killing many Austro-Boches — would pro- 
duce direct contact with troops of Bulgaria 
and Turkey and the large recruiting-grounds 
of Turkey-in-Asia and Persia. In this way 
at least a million and a half of fresh soldiers, 
armed or not — ^but whom the Turks are al- 
ready recruiting and training as far as pos- 
sible — would be at once at the service of the 
Kaiser. Can there he any doubt that, having 



166 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

solved the vital effective problem in his own favor, 
he would hesitate to make use of these new 
men on the west front, perhaps before Russia 
is again able to resume a strong offensive 
along her entire line?" 

The weakening followed by the disintegra- 
tion of Russia, begun several months after I 
wrote these lines (October, 1915), gave Ger- 
many the chance to fill up her western lines 
with levies of troops drawn from the Russian 
front and from Austria-Hungary and left 
her Turkish and Bulgarian effectives for her 
eastern operations. But it cannot be denied 
that when Serbia was crushed it decided the 
man-power question in Germany's favor. This 
operation gave three results to Berlin: 

1st. It has provided the Central Powers up 
to now with about 3 millions of new mobilized 
Turks and Bulgars, equal to twice the number 
I estimated in October, 1915. 

2d. It has deprived the Entente of the sup- 
port of 350,000 brave Serbian soldiers. 

3d. It placed Greece — with about 400,000 
possible mobilized men, and Roumania with 
about 700,000 who might be enrolled, in a bad 
strategic position in case they wished to in- 
tervene later, as events have abundantly 
proved. 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 167 

It was certainly thanks to these results that 
Germany was able to hold out until the Bul- 
garian collapse. 

Second example. If the Entente had grasped 
earlier than Germany the vital importance of 
the Danube front, not only would she have 
prevented the Austro-Germans from securing 
the above advantages, but the Allies would 
have settled the great question of man-power 
in their own favor even more decisively than 
Germany settled it through the destruction of 
Serbia. 

To understand this, let us suppose that in 
the first half of the year 1915, instead of send- 
ing 150,000 men to capture the Dardanelles 
under conditions which forbade success, the 
Entente had sent them to Belgrade on the 
Danube. This expedition was materially per- 
fectly possible. The Salonika-Belgrade Rail- 
road was not at all a wretched little mountain 
line, as Colonel Repington wrongly makes out 
in the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1918. In 
1915, it was a good single-track road, with 
double-track passing points about every 20 
kilometres; it wanted rolling-stock, but this 
could readily have been supplied. If necessary, 
the double track could have been extended for 
nearly the whole length of the line; the sec- 



168 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

tions where two tracks could not have been laid 
were relatively short and consequently could 
not have made the main line impracticable. 
Besides, in point of fact, the Germans made 
use of much of this railroad from north to 
south to organize the whole German-Bulgar 
front in Macedonia, a proof, if any were 
needed, that the Allies could have made it 
equally useful from south to north to trans- 
port an army to the Danube. If they had 
sent only 150,000 Franco-English men they 
would have brought about the following con- 
sequences: 

1st. The appearance at Belgrade of these 
150,000 Franco-English soldiers would have 
been a tangible proof to all Greeks, Serbians, 
Roumanians, Slavs, and Latins of Austria- 
Hungary, amounting to 44 millions of anti- 
German people, that France and England 
understood that the true aim of the war de- 
clared by Germany was the conquest of cen- 
tral Europe — the key of the world — and that 
the Allies realized that the best way to win 
the war was to put that key in their pocket. 

2d. The appearance on the Danube of 
Anglo-French troops would have reassured 
the Balkan Allies of the Entente and the nu- 
merous insurrectionist groups in Austria- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 169 

Hungary; they would have seen in it a pledge 
that the great Western Powers would employ 
all material necessary for their liberation. 

3d. Under these circumstances Greece and 
Roumania unquestionably would have joined 
the Allies without further delay. In fact, 
during the first haK of 1915 popular feeling 
in Greece, and especially in Roumania, set so 
strongly toward the Entente that it would 
have been easy to overcome the opposition 
of King Constantine at Athens and the tem- 
porizing policy of M. Bratiano at Bucharest. 

4th. These various psychological arguments 
should convince us that even so small a force 
as 150,000 Franco-English on the Danube 
would have made a tie strong enough to bind 
together the many elements favorable to the 
Allies in central Europe and the Balkans. 

5th. If 150,000 Franco-Britains had been 
sent to the Balkans it would have had for 
practical effect the creation of an Entente 
army on the Danube and in the Balkans, made 
up as follows: 

150,000 Franco-English. 
350,000 Serbians. 
400,000 Greeks. 
700,000 Roumanians. 



Say, 1,600,000 men. 



170 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

6th. This army would have siiflSced, on ac- 
count of the nature of the country and the 
ease with which it can be defended, to form 
an insurmountable barrier stretching from 
Montenegro on the Adriatic to the mouth of 
the Danube on the Black Sea. 

7th. The road to the east would have been 
closed to Austria-Germany by this barrier. 

8th. South of this barrier, Bulgaria, denuded 
of munitions by the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, 
would have been helpless for the remainder 
of the war. 

9th. Again, south of this barrier, Turkey, 
also lacking armament, and for the same rea- 
son, at the end of a very few weeks would 
have been forced not only to cease fighting 
the Allies, but to reopen the straits to them 
of her own accord. 

To the north of this barrier, helped, cheered, 
and emboldened by the presence of a strong 
Allied force on the Danube, the 28 millions of 
Slavs and Latins, unwilling subjects of the 
Hapsburgs, who were restless from the begin- 
ning of the conflict, would have risen as one 
man, and the greater number, pressed into 
the Austro-Hungarian army, would have de- 
serted to the army of the Danube, so that the 
Entente would have found in Austria-Hungary 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 171 

itself an unlimited supply of good soldiers. 
All this certainly would have happened, for 
under much less favorable circumstances Slav 
soldiers, subjects of Austria, deserted in Serbia 
and Russia by hundreds of thousands and 
took service against the Central Empires. 
In the summer of 1916 the Czecho-Slovaks, 
who were so much admired by the Allies for 
their bravery and intelligence in Siberia were 
ex-Austro-Hungarian soldiers who surrendered 
to the Russians and afterward enlisted in the 
armies of the Czar to fight the Austro-Ger- 
mans. 

From the special point of view of the man- 
power question, the presence of only 150,000 
Franco-English soldiers would have led to the 
following results: 

1st. Three millions of Turkish and Bul- 
garian mobilized men would have been kept 
out of the Austro-Hungarian army. 

2d. The Entente would have gained 1,450,- 
000 Balkan soldiers, well placed geograph- 
ically. 

3d. The Entente was so placed as to excite 
under the best possible conditions the revolt 
of 28 millions of Slavs and Latins in Austria- 
Hungary, and this solution of the man-power 
problem would have had decisive influence 



172 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

in favor of the Allies. In 1915, the Russians 
were still in the Carpathians, in eastern Aus- 
tria; the breakdown of Austria-Hungary re- 
sulting from insurrection of its oppressed 
peoples would have encircled Germany in a 
geographical sense, and the latter, cut off from 
her eastern food-supply by the Allied barrier 
on the Danube, would have been forced at the 
end of a few months to surrender uncondi- 
tionally. 

These wonderful results would have been 
the logical effect produced if only 150,000 
Franco-English soldiers had been sent to the 
Danube. 

We can thus demonstrate the overwhelming 
superiority which political strategy sometimes 
possesses over that which is simply military. 
The sending of 150,000 men to a point, tech- 
nically well chosen, may cause these men to 
influence the fate of a battle much more than 
their number would allow, but the use of polit- 
ical strategy can add extraordinarily to this 
effect. This is proved when we see by the 
preceding explanations that only 150,000 
Franco-British sent to the Danube would have 
been worth millions of men to the Allies. 
Why should this be? Because Belgrade was 
just the one exact spot in Europe where the 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 173 

Allies could have utilized all the factors in 
the political strategy of the situation as it 
was in 1915. The factor of geography, that 
is, a barrier region easy to organize and to 
defend between the Adriatic and the Black 
Sea — the ethnological factor, meaning the Slav 
and Latin anti-German groups of central 
Europe. The economic factor, which meant 
to cut off Austria-Germany from the granaries 
of the east, the psychological factor, that is, 
the hatred of the oppressed populations of 
central Europe for the German-Magyars. The 
results from these factors, added one to an- 
other, produce the wonderful force of political 
strategy. 

However this may be, these two instances, 
that of the supplementary man-power gained 
by Germany through the ruin of Serbia, and 
that of the Entente, which failed to under- 
stand the tremendous opportunity given by 
the Danube front to solve once and for all, 
and advantageously, the effective problem, 
give proof, supported by facts, that man- 
power and even decisive victory can be gained 
through political strategy with absolute cer- 
tainty. 

The events in the Balkans since October, 
1918, are a brilliant confirmation of this view. 



174 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

for in spite of all the faults committed in this 
region for four years, the victory of the Allies 
over Bulgaria in less than a month made its 
consequences felt to the very heart of Germany. 
Why is this so? Because at last the Allies 
comprehended that it was necessary to attack 
on the weak fronts, and above all to shut out 
of the fighting the troops of Pangermany 
mobilized in spite of themselves by Germany. 
It is the view which I have supported for a 
very long time, notably in the Atlantic Monthly. 

We are now about to grasp the basic reason 
of the great victories which the Allies have 
won at the end of 1918. 

We estimated at about 22 millions (page 
150) the mobilized forces of Pangermany at 
the outset of the fifth year of war. This figure 
represented not only the elements of German 
strength, but it contained also large elements 
of weakness in the armies of Pangermany. It 
is just these weaknesses which gave a great 
opportunity to the Allies, for in fact this 
amount of 22 millions of soldiers included a 
considerable proportion of Latins, Slavs, and 
Semitic soldiers forced into the service and 
who hate Germans, Magyars, and Turks with 
a deadly hatred. 

Let us try to find what proportion of anti- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 175 

Germans were enrolled in German armies 
against their will, according to the figures for 
1914. 
The following table will show: 



Total population 


Pro-German elements 


Anti-German elements 


millions 




millions 


millions 


Germany 68 


Germans . 


....61 


Poles, Danes, 
Alsace-Lor- 
raines 7 


Austria- 






Slavs and Lat- 


Hungary .... 50 


Germans . 


....12 


ins 28 




Magyars. 


10 




Turkey 10 


Turks.... 


.... 6 


Semites 4 


Total 128 




89 


39 



Reckoning the Turks at only half their 
population for reasons given above (see page 
148), the proportion of the anti-Germans as 
against the pro-Germans, included in the 
mobilization ordered from Berlin, is as 39 
to 89. That is, among the 22 millions of 
soldiers in Pangermany, nearly 7 millions — 
6,700,000, to be exact — were determined anti- 
Pangermanists. Consequently, even if accord- 
ing to the strict provisions of the recent 
Austro-German alliance the Slav and Latin 
soldiers were already distributed among the 
German troops, the Pangerman armies com- 



176 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

prised at this moment three men out of ten 
who served under constraint for a cause which 
they detested, for they knew well that the 
permanent triumph of Pangermany would have 
riveted their chains. 

Until the recent offensive of October in the 
Balkans, the Allies had drawn no advantage 
from this situation, which was so favorable to 
them, for two reasons. Firsts they had failed 
for too long to see the enormous importance 
of the ethnographical character of this war. 
It is only at the end of the fourth year of 
the struggle that we are beginning to under- 
stand the value of the Czecho-Slovak and 
Jugo-Slav populations, who with the Poles and 
the Roumanians form a group of nearly 60 
millions of anti-Germans inhabiting central 
Europe. Secondly, the Allies pursued a purely 
military strategy, of which the effects were 
concentrated on the western front, while the 
Germans employed political strategy, which 
placed infinite resources at their disposal, 
allowing them to dissipate the adverse forces 
by other methods than those simply military, 
but which in certain cases are more eflScacious 
than the latter in arriving at victory. The 
results obtained by the Germans by the help 
of political strategy have been striking and in- 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 177 

disputable. It was thanks to political strategy 
and not by force that the Germans brought 
about the military downfall of Russia. It 
was their pacifist propaganda which permitted 
them to cause the surrender of the Italian 
divisions defending Caporetto, and thus to 
take possession of mountain regions considered 
impregnable to military attacks. If the Ger- 
mans were in the Allies' place, is it possible to 
believe that they would fail for four years to 
play the trump-card in their hand, represented 
by 7 millions of anti-German populations of 
Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Jugo-Slavs, and Rou- 
manians of central Europe ? 

Among the Allies many people have long 
thought it was quite natural that the Germans 
should carry on intrigues in Ireland, in Mo- 
rocco, in China, in India, in Afghanistan, etc., 
but held that it was impossible to act on the 
Slav and Latin soldiers incorporated against 
their will in the armies of Pangermany. Their 
great argument consisted in saying: "These 
soldiers are commanded by Germans and Mag- 
yars, and therefore they can do nothing." In 
the first place, those of the Allies who reasoned 
in this way did not know the peoples of central 
Europe. In addition, have the Allies ever 
tried the effect of political strategy in those 



178 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

countries during the first four years of the 
war? Never. On the contrary, for a very 
long time the poHcy of the war was directed 
by the AUies so as really to discourage all ac- 
tion in their favor on the part of Slav and 
Latin soldiers mobilized unwillingly by Ger- 
many and her allies. These Slav and Latin 
soldiers, nevertheless, did of their own accord 
all that was possible to them. At the .out- 
break of war, as has been mentioned above, 
hundreds of thousands of soldiers included in 
the Austro-Hungarian armies gave themselves 
up to the Russians and Serbians. In May, 
1917, the authorized representatives of the 
Poles, Czechs, and Jugo-Slavs declared in 
open parliament at Vienna, in the plainest 
manner, in favor of the Entente and against 
Pangermany. Could they do more.^ And 
how were they answered.^ In November, 
1917, Mr. Lloyd George under pressure from 
the British pacifists, who thought to shorten 
the war by eliminating from the Allied peace- 
programme the solution of the problem, most 
vital of all, that of central Europe, made an 
address in which he declared himself a par- 
tisan of the maintenance of Austria-Hungary. 
The text of this speech was widely reproduced 
in Austria-Hungary by the government of 



PANGERMANY'S MILITARY STRENGTH 179 

Vienna, in order that its Slav and Latin sub- 
jects should cease to count on the Entente, 
since the latter was no longer interested in 
their fate. This propaganda produced among 
the Slavs and Latins of central Europe a very 
natural period of discouragement. Under these 
conditions, how could they be expected to 
revolt efficaciously against their oppressors ? 

Since this, however, events have immensely 
developed. The Allies have realized at last 
that a separate peace with Austria-Hungary, if 
it was not a terrible piece of trickery, would be 
a chimera. The congress of oppressed nation- 
alities which met at Rome in April, 1918, 
sealed the alliance of Italians and Jugo-Slavs. 
Lansing's note came near to approbation of 
the hopes of the nationalities of central Eu- 
rope, as did also an analogous note of the War 
Council at Versailles, which at last turned the 
policy of the Entente in the right direction, 
bringing the political aims of the war into 
harmony with the democratic principles that 
she has invoked as justification for her mili- 
tary action. 

At last the offensive against Bulgaria, after 
having been carefully prepared by General 
Franchet d'Esperey and General Henrys, who 
rendered immense services, was developed in 



180 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

October, 1918, into a complete success. The 
results already assure to the Entente complete 
victory on the sole condition that it does not 
lose in negotiations the essential fruits of the 
strategic-political manoeuvre which has just 
taken place in central Europe. But the ex- 
planations just made allow us to be convinced 
that these results could have been gained much 
more easily and with still more decisive con- 
sequences at the beginning of 1915 if the fatal 
theory of the principal front had not pre- 
vented for four years the realization that the 
front of the Danube-Middle Europe Allies is 
the decisive one. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WHY THE ALLIES OF GERMANY HAVE THOUGHT 
IT WAS TO THEIR INTEREST TO ACT WITH 
HER. 

I. Why Turkey went with Germany. 
II. The advantages which the Bulgarians thought to gain 

by siding with Berlin. 
in. Reasons for which Austria-Hungary is unavoidably an 

indispensable base for Pangerman imperialism. 
IV. The five centres of imperialism must be destroyed. 

Many of the disappointments suffered by 
the AUies arise from the fact that they have 
not completely realized the political aspects of 
the war in its European extent. The result is 
that after four years of war large numbers in 
the Entente, seeing only Germany as personi- 
fied by her Kaiser, look upon her allies as 
participants certainly in the world conflict, 
but as partners of quite secondary impor- 
tance, as relatively negligible quantities, and 
even sometimes as states worthy of a sort of 
compassion on account of the crafty violence 
which they endured at the hands of Germany 
to force them to follow her into the war. 
Many among the Allies are really convinced 

181 



182 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

that Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary 
have bent against their will under the yoke 
which circumstances allow Berlin to impose 
upon them. 

These two opinions are not correct. In the 
first place, these three countries have given 
help to Germany which has been most valua- 
ble to her for the conduct of the war, and, 
secondly, they have done this with good-will, 
because these three states have believed that 
it was to their interest to take this course. 

Too much importance cannot be attached 
to these facts. But to grasp the interest 
which has led Germany's allies to throw in 
their lot with hers, it is necessary to go out- 
side of ourselves, or, according to the forcible 
expression of my teacher, Albert Sorel, *'we 
must get into the enemy's skin," that is to 
say, judge the interests of the governments of 
Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, and Constantinople, 
not with the ideas of people fighting for justice 
and democracy, but from the point of view of 
the governmental aims of the Austrians, Bul- 
gars, or Turks, who have been all aristocratic 
or imperialist or both. It is therefore only 
from the adversary's standpoint that we can 
see the advantage he seeks, and understand 
clearly why Constantinople, Sofia, and Vienna 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 183 

have for four years been in close alliance with 
Berlin. 

I. 

The assistance given by the Turks to Ger- 
many has been much more valuable than is 
generally supposed. From the Ottoman Em- 
pire, the Germans have drawn foodstuffs, hides, 
fats, and minerals which aid them considerably 
in keeping up the war. The co-operation of 
the government of Constantinople has placed 
at the disposal of the Berlin General Staff 
about 2 million men, of whom many have 
been employed to cultivate the soil in Asia 
Minor, while the rest, fighting, have contrib- 
uted strongly to the accomplishment of the 
Pangerman plan in the Balkans and the over- 
throw of Russia. Besides this, the close ac- 
cord of the Commander of the Faithful with 
the Kaiser has allowed the latter to profit by 
the Pan-Islam agitation, which has been a hin- 
drance to the Allies in Africa and India, and 
was destined to injure them still more in those 
regions, as well as in the Caucasus, southern 
Russia, Persia, central Asia, Afghanistan, and 
China, if the brilliant victories of the Allies 
in the Balkans had not come to render Turkey 
powerless. 



184 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

The close solidarity of the Turkish and Ger- 
man Empires was caused for the clearest and 
strongest of reasons. 

Under the Sultan Abdul-Hamid the in- 
terior situation of the Ottoman Empire had 
become so intolerable for all its subjects that, 
in 1908, the Young Turk revolution took place, 
based ostensibly on liberal principles, and 
was enthusiastically supported by the Chris- 
tian populations. For some months all Eu- 
rope believed that the Ottoman Empire would 
at last enter on the path of regeneration, but 
this illusion was short-lived. From the be- 
ginning the Young Turks had seized on the 
revolutionary movement, and soon showed 
themselves to be inordinately vain, incapable 
of any reforms, and such harsh oppressors of 
the Christians that Bulgaria, Serbia, and 
Greece, in spite of the mutual distrust arising 
from their rival ambitions, united to rescue 
their coreligionists, the Ottoman Christians of 
Macedonia, from the Young Turkish yoke. 

These events led to the Balkan Wars of 
1912-13, which left the Ottoman Empire in 
Europe deprived of all but a small territory 
to the northwest of Constantinople. This 
disaster showed in a still clearer light the pro- 
found incapacity of the Young Turks, so that 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 185 

it was widely believed that the Turkish Em- 
pire would shortly crumble as a result of its 
internal disintegration. This state of things 
might have been predicted for some time, and 
particularly since 1910, and perhaps for this 
reason Sir Edward Grey, in 1912-13, as 
Prince Lichnowsky's memoirs assert, entered 
into secret negotiations with Germany for 
the division of Turkey in Asia among the 
Great Powers. According to the principles 
of agreement laid down on this subject, Ger- 
many obtained the lion's share as sphere of 
influence, that is, all Mesopotamia as far as 
Bassorah, the largest and richest district of 
Turkey in Asia, which is crossed by the Ham- 
burg-Persian Gulf Line, and which from about 
1895 had been ardently coveted by the gov- 
ernment of Berlin. To the great surprise of 
Prince Lichnowsky, German ambassador in 
London, if this treaty was negotiated, it was 
not definitely concluded, that is, signed by 
the German Government. On learning this, 
many readers of the Lichnowsky memoirs 
asked themselves why Germany did not ratify 
this treaty, which was so advantageous to her, 
giving her, as it did, the long-desired coun- 
try of Mesopotamia. Events since this war 
began throw light on the reasons for which 



186 AN ENDUKING VICTORY 

Germany decided not to ratify the treaty ar- 
ranged at London by her ambassador, and 
show also why Turkey threw herself with all 
her force into the war against the Allies. 

At the end of 1913 and the beginning of 
1914 the Young Turks found themselves 
situated as follows: Having banished or 
hanged most of their political enemies, the 
Old Turks, among whom were the adherents 
of a good understanding with the Western 
Powers, the Young Turks just before the war 
were undoubtedly sole masters of Turkey, 
and all the more because the government of 
Constantinople was absolutist and made up 
of very few persons, all leaders of the Young 
Turk party : Enver Pacha, Talaat Bey, Djavid 
Bey, General Djemal Pacha, Doctor Nazim, 
etc. As for the Sultan, Mahomet V, the poor 
man was so debilitated by the long captivity 
inflicted on him by the suspicious Abdul- 
Hamid that he had lost all will-power, had 
absolutely no influence, and was a mere puppet 
in the hands of the Young Turk pro-consuls. 
The latter held the reins of power, but they 
were confronted by insurmountable difficulties. 
Their financial embarrassments were enor- 
mous and nearly impossible to overcome. 
The Young Turks were detested by all the 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 187 

non-Turkish populations of the empire, whom 
they had duped, and they were also deeply 
humiliated by the tremendous defeat which 
Turkey had suffered under their rule at the 
hands of the Balkan States. Lastly, the Young 
Turks were much irritated against Russia, 
England, and France, for these countries had 
come to see that there was nothing to be made 
of the Young Turks, and had shown in 1912- 
13 sympathy with the Balkan peoples. 

These circumstances taken together brought 
about a material and psychological situation 
particularly favorable to William II, when 
he acted so as to decide the Turks to join with 
him in the struggle for which he was preparing. 

Profiting by the above-mentioned state of 
afifairs, it is most probable that at the begin- 
ning of 1914 the German Emperor should 
have spoken as follows to the Young Turks, 
especially to Talaat Bey, and even more to 
Enver Pacha — the most ambitious and Ger- 
manophile of all the Turks, who is known to 
have made a mysterious journey into Ger- 
many a few months before the war: 

The Kaiser probably said : 

*' England wishes to break up the Ottoman 
Empire; here are the notes of the treaty on 
this subject, drawn up by Sir Edward Grey and 



188 AN ENDURINJ3 YICTORY 

Prince Lichnowsky in London. I let the Eng- 
lish go on, so that I could fathom their whole 
intention, but I refused to sign the treaty they 
offered me, because I am a sincere friend of the 
Ottoman Empire. A great plan is in prepara- 
tion, which will put an end to all your troubles. 
In a few months Germany will declare war 
on her enemies, who are yours also. Let Tur- 
key join us with all her might in this conflict, 
and not only will I oppose the disruption of 
your empire, but I will promise you the fol- 
lowing advantages : 

"At the present moment, the Young Turk 
party can scarcely maintain itself in the Otto- 
man Empire, which consists now of only 20 
million inhabitants since the disastrous Balkan 
War. Confronted with 2 million Levantines 
and Jews, with 8 millions of Arabs, of whom 
a part hate you, with 2 millions of Greeks, 
and 2 of Armenians — ^your irreconcilable en- 
emies — ^you have only 6 millions of Turks in 
your own empire, and are therefore a minor- 
ity faced by numerous and insurmountable 
difficulties. [See the annexed map, which 
gives a clear view of the great nationalities in 
Turkey.] Well ! come into the war with me 
and the situation will be radically transformed. 

"Aided by the struggle, you can eliminate 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 



189 




190 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

the Armenians, Greeks, and those of the Arabs 
who are in your way. This 'ethnographical 
rearrangement' of Turkey will enable you 
later to dominate your non-Turkish popula- 
tions without difficulty. Enriched by the war, 
Germany will advance the sums necessary 
to develop the enormous economic resources 
latent in your country, and will also furnish 
engineers and technicians. In order to in- 
crease the number of Moslems in the en- 
larged Turkish Empire, victorious Germany 
will also restore or acquire the Crimea, the 
Turkish parts of the Caucasus, Persia, and 
Egypt, which will extend your influence 
strongly over all Mussulman Africa. One 
of Germany's objects in this war is to destroy 
Russia, the age-long enemy of the Turkish 
Empire. Following the overthrow of the em- 
pire of the Czars, Moslem states will be set 
up in the Caucasus and in central Asia, and 
these states will be guided from Constan- 
tinople, owing to the solidarity of the Tura- 
nian races. When all those who would profit 
by this plan have well understood its value it 
will estabhsh good and permanent relations be- 
tween you, the Bulgarians, and the Magyars, 
who will form the geographical basis of your 
direct understanding with Germany. 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 191 

"When this programme is carried out it will 
be as of old and even more; the power of the 
Commander of the Faithful will be exerted 
not only religiously, as in former days, but 
pohtically as well. It will extend over a great 
part of the world, reaching from South Africa 
to the heart of China." 

For any one who knows the imperialist ten- 
dencies of the Young Turks and their profound 
hatred for the Armenians, the Greeks, and the 
Arabs, such words from the German Emperor 
early in 1914, when the Ottoman Empire was 
tottering to its fall, must have been welcomed 
with pleasure and even enthusiasm by the 
Young Turk leaders, who knew that not only 
Turkey but they themselves were on the verge 
of ruin. 

Most of these men had long held Germa- 
nophile opinions, and it is easy to see the mo- 
tives which led the Young Turks and the 
empire which was entirely in their hands to 
take sides with Germany in the approaching 
war. 

But the war has lasted too long for an em- 
pire in the condition of the Turkish Empire. 
Oriental indolence has been irritated at the 
length of the work which the Germans have 
imposed upon it. Finally, the defeat of Bui- 



19^ AN ENDURING VICTORY 

garia and the immediate seizure of the Danube 
by the AlKes have cut off Turkey from Ger- 
many strategically, thus compelling its com- 
plete surrender. 

II. 

The attitude of the Entente toward Bul- 
garia has been for a long time wanting in the 
clearness which alone makes it possible to 
act with the decision needed to win a victory. 
After four years of war there were still Allies 
with Bulgarophile tendencies, and if that was 
so it was because in the Entente, with regard 
to Bulgaria, as also on other subjects, people 
lived on old ideas, which were well enough 
in their day, but were now out of date. 

If the aspirations of the Bulgarian author- 
ities since 1907, if the violent hatreds of the 
entire people, from the Treaty of Bucharest 
to the 10th of August, 1913, had been realized 
from the beginning of the war, the Allies would 
have known that on the first opportunity the 
Bulgars would throw in their lot with Berlin. 

I cannot be suspected of partiality when 
I speak of Bulgaria, for I have visited that 
country often in the last twenty-five years, 
have been her devoted friend, and labored 
for a good understanding between her, Serbia, 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 193 

and Roumania up to June, 1913, that is, until 
the Bulgars treacherously attacked their Greek 
and Serbian allies. This inexcusable aggres- 
sion put an end to my sympathy, and my 
estimate of the Bulgars was definitely fixed 
when at Sofia in March, 1914, I became pos- 
sessed of an oflScial Bulgarian document which 
revealed to the fullest extent the imperialist 
aims which I had not before suspected. This 
document consists of the Bulgarian book 
called The Soldier^s Comrade, first published 
in 1907 with the authorization and recom- 
mendation of the Bulgarian minister of war 
(Report No. 25, March 21st, 1907, and No. 31, 
March 10th, 1908). Since 1907, this book has 
been distributed in all the barracks and mili- 
tary schools, thus reaching every inhabitant 
of Bulgaria who has passed through these 
barracks since that date. On page 56 of the 
historical section of this book is a colored 
map of *' Greater Bulgaria," which shows the 
whole scheme for Bulgarian hegemony in the 
Balkan Peninsula. The accompanying draw- 
ing, an exact copy of this map, gives a clear 
idea of the considerable encroachments con- 
templated by this plan on neighboring states. 
It is therefore undeniable that the authorities 
at Sofia, ever since 1907, that is, seven years 



194 



AN ENDURING VICTORY 




THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 195 

prior to the war, have taught the people of 
Bulgaria that they should fight to conquer, 
not alone the districts of Macedonia settled by 
Bulgars, but also extensive regions in Greece, 
as well as those inhabited by Serbians, Al- 
banians, and the whole Roumanian Dobrudja, 
up to the mouths of the Danube. This 
idea was spread abroad among the people of 
Bulgaria, as the Pangerman scheme was dis- 
seminated in Germany, and it has been pur- 
sued since 1907, by the Bulgarian Government, 
seeking tenaciously to bring it about by means 
of successive operations. The plan allows us 
to see why the Bulgars were not sincere when, 
in 1912, they concluded an alliance merely to 
make use of the Serbians and the Greeks in 
order to beat the Turks, who were too strong 
for them to conquer by themselves. But as 
soon as the part of their plan relating to Tur- 
key was realized, in order to carry it out, this 
time at the expense of Greece and Serbia, Bul- 
garia attacked her former allies in June, 1913. 
Roumania then intervened against the Bul- 
gars, and, the Serbians having won the battle 
of the Bregalnitza, Bulgaria was beaten and 
forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest, August 
10th, 1913. This treaty did not establish 
Bulgarian hegemony; rather the Balkan bal- 



196 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

ance of power, just the reverse of what Bul- 
garia wished; for if the peace had lasted the 
Balkan equilibrium would have crystallized, 
and the success of the Bulgarian plan in the 
future have become impossible. This is why 
the Treaty of Bucharest was so deep a disap- 
pointment to the Bulgars, and created so much 
irritation as to alter their former feelings ab- 
ruptly. Having taken from the Turks nearly 
as much as was designed in the plan for Greater 
Bulgaria, and seeing that it would be more 
to their advantage to declare themselves Tu- 
ranians than to remain Slavs, the Bulgars 
decided to ally themselves with the Turks, 
and from that time concentrated their hate 
and vindictive qualities, which are enormous, 
against their recent conquerors, the Greeks, 
and above all the Serbians and Roumanians. 
Granting the imperialist aims of the Bul- 
gars resulting from their plan of 1907, and 
their resentment irrevocably directed against 
their neighbors since the end of 1913, it is 
plain that they could not satisfy their exag- 
gerated ambition and their intense hatreds 
except by taking the side of Germany. The 
Entente was in no position to help Bulgaria 
to lay hands on Roumanian, Serbian, and 
Greek territory; and therefore, for these com- 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 107 

Lined reasons, an understanding was easily 
reached between Berlin and Sofia, several 
months before the war, as certain facts will 
convince us. 

In 1916, Frederic Naumann, the man of 
Middle Europe, pubhshed a pamphlet called 
Bulgaria and Central Europe, of which Payot, 
the pubhsher at Paris, furnished a translation. 
Naumann writes as follows: 

"When, about a year ago, in August, 1915, 
I wrote my book Mitteleuropa, I could not 
then speak of Bulgaria, for at that time in 
the eyes of the European pubhc the attitude 
of that country was doubtful. Even if the 
Czar Ferdinand, and his Minister- President 
Radoslavoff had then known exactly what they 
wished to do, and even if those in charge of foreign 
policy in Germany regarded Sofia with ever-in- 
creasing confidence, it would nevertheless have 
been impossible to discuss the rapprocjiement 
while it was forming. Now everything then 
hidden is brought into the light of day. The 
aUiance is made, and the success of the war 
against Serbia has amply proved that they 
were right who labored for the Union of Cen- 
tral Europe with Bulgaria." 

It is clear that Naumann tells only a part of 
the truth, but this part is most interesting, for 



198 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

it is a proof that in August, 1915 — that is, at 
a time when the AUies were still foolish enough 
to imagine that the government of Sofia was 
hesitating, or, as I have often heard it said, 
even that it could be bought — the Czar Ferdi- 
nand and his first minister, Radoslavoff, ''knew 
exactly what they wished to do,^^ the whole thing 
being then a secret. Now, therefore, we are 
really justified in believing that the Czar Fer- 
dinand and his Radoslavoff, who for a long 
time had been among the most notorious Ger- 
manophiles of Sofia, knew exactly what they 
wanted to do not only in August, 1915, but 
long before the war. 

In fact, according to information pubhshed 
by the Petit Parisien, March 26th, 1916, and 
the Temps, April 10th, 1916, M. Radoslavoff 
revealed during a suit which took place in 
Sofia early in 1916 that the treaties between 
Bulgaria, Berlin, and Constantinople were con- 
cluded before April, 1914. These treaties were 
not made public for excellent reasons. In the 
first place, it was necessary to let the Allies 
entangle themselves in interminable negotia- 
tions, making them think that the Bulgarian 
Government had not yet made its choice; then 
it was best to wait until military events were 
sufficiently advanced to persuade the Bulgar 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 199 

people, some of whom were still Russophiles, to 
join Germany. This object was attained after 
the defeat of the Allies in the Dardanelles and 
the great Russian retreat on the Dunaietz in 
May, 1915, and was finished some months 
later. 

During the first three years of the war the 
Bulgars were stalwart Germanophiles. They 
have undeniable qualities; they are sober and 
economical, but they are born rapacious to an 
incredible degree. This last characteristic ac- 
counts for the action of this democratic people 
— democratic, as it consists entirely of peas- 
ants — ^but they have been made imperialists 
through the propagation of the plan for Bul- 
garian hegemony since 1907, because that 
propaganda has developed in the peasants the 
passion for the soil, for territorial aggrandize- 
ment, to an extent of which nothing can give 
an idea. They were greatly pleased, there- 
fore, with the acquisitions they made, thanks 
to their friendship with Berlin. 

In his pamphlet called Bulgaria and Cen- 
tral Europe^ published in 1916 and quoted 
above, Frederic Naumann describes as follows 
a trip he had just made to Bulgaria with ten 
other members of the Reichstag. 

"Greater Bulgaria is not yet defined; foreign 



200 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

powers threaten us continually with fresh at- 
tacks; but the first and most decisive step has 
now been taken; Bulgaria came to us in the 
midst of a besieged Central Europe, as the first 
addition to the group which we shall form in 
the future. 

"A description from day to day of our jour- 
ney, taken under the thoughtful care of the 
former Bulgarian minister at Belgrade, M. 
Tchaprachikofif* does not enter into our plan, 
and, besides, could hardly be put into words. 
One may experience the development of popu- 
lar enthusiasm, loyal and simple, but it cannot 
be described in one place after another with- 
out needless tediousness. It suffices to say 
that we, German representatives, having some 
experience as critics of assemblies and popular 
movements, were impressed afresh each day 
by the clamorous wave of people who cheered 
joyously and vigorously those who came to 
help them to victory. The Bulgars are not 
dramatic by nature; they have nothing of the 
Latin, and little of the Greek; they do not 



* Stephen Tchaprachikoff formerly studied at the School of Polit- 
ical Sciences in Paris about 1895, and up to March, 1914, was one 
of my personal friends. He was for a long time the private secretary 
of King Ferdinand and his confidential agent. Since the war, he has 
become such a thorough Germanophile that Naumann and his com- 
panions were placed in his care during their journey in Bulgaria. 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 201 

pose as stage heroes, but they are brave and 
rough, practical, rather silent and shy. 

"It was a nation of peasants who left their 
villages in crowds, flocking to the railroad sta- 
tions to see us, German representatives. It 
was not on our account personally, being as 
we were for the most part unknown to them, 
but for the sake of the German army, the Ger- 
man state and policy of Central Europe, and 
for the cause of their own king and country. 
We received in this way a popular ovation, 
particularly significant and beautiful in the 
extreme. While the Bulgarian people spoke 
to us by the mouth of its representatives and 
magistrates, it felt that the first period of its 
national existence was closing: the period ex- 
tending from its deliverance by the Russians 
to the Second Balkan War, from 1876 to 
1914." 

But as the extension of Bulgaria was estab- 
lished over territories which were not truly 
Bulgarian, and as it was artificial and it was 
constantly necessary to be in conflict with the 
populations ripe for rebellion at the same time 
that they had to hold the lines of the Salonika 
front, the fourth year of the war was of an 
increasing strenuousness, which, never ceasing, 
became more intolerable from day to day. In 



202 



AN ENDURING VICTORY 



trying to become bigger than the ox the Bul- 
garian frog burst, and when the AUied offen- 
sive developed in October, 1918, in a few days 
Bulgaria fell. 

Ill 

Austria-Hungary is not a nation, but a state, 
alone of its kind, where everything is organized 



THE THREE PARTS OF AUSTRIA - HUNGARY 



V^^^5L>' ^ 



\3 S S / 




1 Austria 

2 Hnngaiy 
8 Bosnia •H«raegoviita 



with a special object, which is to make it pos- 
sible for the German-Magyar minority to exer- 
cise the most complete political domination 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 203 

over the vast majority of the inhabitants, who 
are Slavo-Latins. 

In order to grasp the truth in its simplest 
form as to the organization of Austria-Hun- 
gary, it should be remembered that this sin- 
gular state is made up of three distinct parts, 
as will be seen on the annexed map. 

1. Austria, which, with a fragment geograph- 
ically detached along the Adriatic (Dalmatia) 
constitutes one empire. 

2. Hungary, which is a kingdom. 

3. Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose constitu- 
tional situation in reference to Austria-Hun- 
gary is not clearly defined, but which may be 
considered as a sort of territory of the empire, 
a colony equally dependent on Austria and 
Hungary 

The three maps below show exactly how the 
50 million inhabitants (this figure is taken, 
exclusive of foreigners, from the census of 
1910, the last given for the dilBFerent nationali- 
ties) are divided among the three districts 
which together constitute the Austro-Hunga- 
rian Empire. 

The double lines which define these popula- 
tions show the arbitrary nature of their distri- 
bution. In spite of themselves, nearly a mil- 
lion Italians are cut off from Italy, 5 millions 



204 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

of Poles separated from Poland, 3,250,000 Rou- 
manians kept out of Roumania against their 
will. The Jugo-Slavs and the Czecho-Slovaks 
are divided between the Empire of Austria and 
the Kingdom of Hungary. In Bosnia-Herze- 
govina alone is the entire Jugo-Slav popula- 
tion homogeneous, but this is again involun- 



THENATIONAUTIES 
IN BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA. 




4" Serbo - Croats or Yugo • Slavs 2 minions 



tary, as she is a kind of colony common to 
Austria and Hungary. 

The figures which accompany these maps 

bring out the fact that altogether there are: 

12 millions of Germans (10 in Austria and 

2 in Hungary.) 10 millions of Magyars 

in Hungary, which makes 22 millions of 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY W5 

inhabitants in Austria-Hungary who rule 
over: 
4 millions of Latins (1 in Austria, 3 in Hun- 
gary). 
24K millions of Slavs (17 in Austria, 5^ in 

Hungary, 2 in Bosnia-Herzegovina). 
Say over ^S}4 millions of Slavs and Latins, 
who are forced to submit to this domina- 
tion. ^^ 
These figures show a majority of 6^ millions 
in favor of the Slav and Latin subjects of the 
Hapsburgs. In fact, however, this majority is 
much larger, for actually the above figures do 
not give the exact truth, as they are those of 
the official statistics drawn up by Germans at 
Vienna and Magyars at Budapesth, who have 
systematically falsified them to serve their own 
ends. The Germans and Magyars add to 
their numbers and diminish in a large propor- 
tion the true figures of the Latins and Slavs. 
Nevertheless, in spite of this perversion of the 
truth, it is plainly to be seen that, even accord- 
ing to the official German and Magyar figures, 
Austria-Hungary is run entirely in the interest 
of the 22 millions of German-Magyars. The 
truth is even more striking, for in relation to 
these figures two facts stand out — one relative 
to the Germans, the other to the Magyars. 



206 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

THE NATIONALITIES IN AUSTRIA 




r 

. /rOU MANIA 



/^ 



-Cn^e^ro /^'BULGARIA 



Note. — The figures in the table below correspond with those used 
for the ethnographic regions in the map. The numbers without primes 
(for instance, 5) show the ethnographic regions of Hungary correspond- 
ing to the nationalities of which the scattered fragments make up the 
greater part of Austria. 

No. 1' is not found in the table below, because it serves to indicate 
in Hungary the Magyars, no group of \V^hich exists in Austria. 

No. 3' in Austria designates the Austro-Roumanians who are 
separated from Roumania. 

No. 4' in Austria designates the Slovenes (1,250,000) and the Serbo- 
Croats (750,000) in Dalmatia, these being different names belonging 
to the Jugo-Slavic people still distributed in Hungary, Bosnia, and 
in Herzegovina or Montenegro or Serbia. 

No. 8' indicates the Italians of Istria and the Trentino, separated 
from their mother country, Italy. 



2'. 
3'. 
8'. 
4'. 
5'. 
6'. 



Germans 10,000,000 Germans, 10 millions. 

Roumanians 250,000 1 x i^- -, mt 

Italians 750,000 ^ ^^^''^' ^ ^^"^«°- 

Jugo-Slavs 2,000,000 

Cz?echs 6,500,000 

Ruthenes 3,500,000 



7'. Poles 5,000,000 



Slavs, 
Total . 



17 millions. 
.28 millions. 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 



207 



THE NATIONALITIES IN HUNGARY 



40 ao 120 160 Miles 

1 I ri I I I > I I 

^5' 




Note. — The figures in the table correspond to those used for the 
ethnographic regions in the map. 

The figures with a prime (5', for instance) indicate the ethno- 
graphic regions of Austria, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, Serbia, and 
Roumania, corresponding to the nationalities of which fragments, 
arbitrarily distributed, form the majority of the population of Hun- 
gary. 

The figures given are in round millions. 



1. Magyars 10 millions. 

2. Germans 2 " 

3. Roumanians 3 " 

4. Serbo-Croats 3 " 

5. Czecho-Slovaks 2 " 

6. Ruthenians J^ " 



Race of Asiatic origin. 
Teutonic race. 
Latin race. 

(Slavic race, 
53^ millions. 



20j^ millions. 



Out of the 12 millions of Germans 10 mil- 
lions are in Austria, of whom about 3 are mixed 
with the Bohemian Czechs, in a country which 
the Germans formerly wrested from them, and 



208 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

2 millions of Germans are distributed over 
Hungary in small groups, geographically so 
far removed from the bulk of the Germans 
that one can hardly say that Austria-Hungary 
exists for their benefit; this is really true only 
of the 10 millions of Germans in Austria. 

As for the 10 millions of Magyars, this figure 
should be analysed from the standpoints of 
differing social interests. 

Among 10 millions of Magyars, 8, that is, the 
vast majority, are poor agricultural or indus- 
trial laborers, who have nothing and are cyni- 
cally exploited by only 2 millions of large 
landed proprietors, priests, and government 
ofiicials, who still enjoy many feudal privileges, 
as in the Middle Ages, and want to preserve 
them, not only in regard to the 10 millions of 
Slavs and Latins under the Magyar rule, but 
also as to the 8 millions of the unfortunate 
Magyar proletariat. The oppression of the 2 
millions of feudal Magyars has a character at 
once national and social in the case of the 10 
millions of Slavs and Latins incorporated as 
unwilling citizens of Hungary; and social as 
regards the 8 millions of Magyar working men. 
Now, if these last were really free and were 
not subjected to the domination of the 2 mil- 
lions of Magyars who oppress them socially. 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 209 

they could surely come to an understanding 
with their Slav and Latin neighbors, which 
would enable these to form the states to which 
they are entitled; and for themselves the Mag- 
yars, freed from their feudal masters, could 
erect in the midst of Poland, Bohemia, Rouma- 
nia, and Jugo-Slavia, a democratic Magyar 
state which could agree with its neighbors to 
form part of the economic territory of southern 
central Europe. 

Remembering the state of mind and the 
social interests of the 8 millions of laboring 
Magyars, it is plain that in reality it is not for 
the advantage of the 12 millions of Magyars, 
but only for the 2 millions of feudal masters 
and functionaries of this race that Hungary 
really exists. 

The two observations just made are ex- 
tremely important, for through them we estab- 
lish the fact that Austria-Hungary only sub- 
sists for the benefit of 10 millions of Germans 
in Austria, and 2 millions of feudal Magyars in 
Hungary, a total of 12 millions of inhabitants, 
against the interests of 38 millions of Slavs, 
Latins, and Magyar proletarians. 

Austria-Hungary is therefore the empire of 
extreme injustice, in a degree even worse than 
Germany. In the latter country, among 68 



210 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

millions of inhabitants in 1914 at least 61 are 
Germans, and perfectly willing to be governed 
as a single nation; in Austria-Hungary, on the 
contrary, 12 millions only of German-Magyars, 
with the help of the Hapsburg dynasty, im- 
pose their will on 38 millions of Slavs, Latins, 
and Magyar laborers. For these causes, if 
modern justice does not demand the overthrow 
of Germany, at least it should insist inexorably 
on that of Austria-Hungary. 

This empire is maintained, also, for the ad- 
vantage of the Hapsburg dynasty, which is 
German, and has a strong interest in the con- 
tinuation of the Austro-Hungarian state. 

Before 1866, it was an open question if the 
Hapsburgs could dominate the Hohenzollerns, 
and rule in their stead over the mass of the 
German population of central Europe, but 
since the defeat of the Hapsburgs at Sadowa 
by the Prussians, in 1866, this question has 
been so completely settled that the Hapsburgs 
have entirely renounced the idea of their 
supremacy over the Hohenzollerns. 

The alternative from which the former must 
choose is explained very clearly in a small 
pamphlet which appeared at Berlin in 1895, 
Pangermany and Central Europe about 1950 
{Gross -Deutschland und Mitteleuropa um das 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 211 

Jahr 1950), which is a pamphlet of remark- 
able interest, for it described twenty-three 
years ago the Pangerman design exactly as 
it has come to pass since 1914. 

"Certainly," said our Pangermanist in 1895, 
"the successful Germanization of the non- 
Germans of Austria-Hungary would not be 
possible without the energetic support of the 
47 millions of Germans of the empire (figures 
of 1895). Naturally, in order to reach this 
result the principle of the equal rights of na- 
tionalities, and certain existing principles as 
to public and private rights, would have to 
be abandoned. . . . 

"Zn case that the House of Hapsburg should 
not be disposed nor well adapted to succeed in the 
difficult task of welding together Austria-Hungary 
and Germany, its part might be played by some 
less important German families " (page 28). 

It is, then, twenty-three years, at least, since 
a sort of permanent ultimatum was presented 
to the Hapsburgs by Berlin, an ultimatum 
which, by the way, they long ago accepted. 

It is easy to understand how this can be, 
when we know the present position of the 
Hapsburgs. To-day this house has an alter- 
native from which to choose. It must totally 
disappear through the triumph of the demo- 



212 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

cratic aspirations of its Slav and Latin subjects, 
who will no longer endure its yoke — and this 
triumph can only come by the victory of the 
Entente, or it can continue thanks to the sup- 
port of the Hohenzollerns, and this implies 
that the Hapsburgs must do their utmost to 
bring about a victory for Germany. It is 
manifest that the latter solution would be 
much less disastrous for the Austrian imperial 
family, and they have therefore adopted it. 
To sum up, the Hapsburgs, the 10 millions of 
Germans in Austria, and the 2 millions of 
feudal Magyars have dynastic, national, and 
social reasons which give them a common 
interest in the maintenance of Austria-Hun- 
gary. 

Under these conditions it is clear that the 
continued existence of the empire is of great 
advantage to Germany, as this existence is 
the geographical condition on which central 
Pangermany depends; for the Pangerman 
bridge toward the east rests on three piers, 
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria reaching to Hun- 
gary, and Turkey. Austria-Hungary is the 
main pier of this bridge which unites Germany 
to the east. The absolute necessity for the 
maintenance of the Austrian Empire by the 
Germans is so evident that in the pamphlet 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY £13 

above mentioned, Gross-Deutschland und MiU 
teleuropa um das Jahr 1950 — Berlin 1895 — it is 
stated plainly: ''The present German Em- 
pire, especially North Germany, needs Austria 
for her eventual defense; this is well under- 
stood by all Prussians" (page 23). 

Looking at another aspect of the question, 
at present the Magyar authorities, in order 
to preserve their mediaeval privileges, which 
are identically those of the Prussian Junkers, 
very deliberately accept the creation of cen- 
tral Pangermany. On the 1st of January, 
1918, the president of the Hungarian Council 
spoke as follows to the parliament at Buda- 
pesth: 

"Closer relations with Germany, owing to 
considerations of the greatest value, are of 
capital importance to us. If we wish to form 
part of the great movement which will stretch 
from the North Sea to the Black Sea, and 
from thence into Asia Minor, we must take 
measures accordingly." 

Finally, the Tagespost, a German paper pub- 
lished at Gratz, in Austria, said on May 14th, 
1918: 

"The strengthening of our alliance with Ger- 
many demands an energetic conduct of our for- 
eign policy. Germany has a vital interest in 



214 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

the existence of Austria-Hungary, in the main- 
tenance of order within the empire, in the 
economic development of its peoples, and the 
prospects of the Austrian state." 

The whole truth is contained in these lines, 
as is well known to those, unfortunately too 
few, who have studied on the spot for twenty 
years the complicated problem of central Eu- 
rope. The recent projects for reorganization 
of the Austrian state with autonomy extended 
to the Slavs, have been a farce to deceive the 
Allies. No experienced politician, either Slav 
or Latin, a Hapsburg subject, believes in these 
proposals, for the word of a Hapsburg is worth 
just about as much as that of a Hohenzollern. 
In 1871 the Emperor Francis-Joseph solemnly 
promised the Czechs to have himself crowned 
King of Bohemia, but he has never since 
chosen to keep his word. 

Finally, at the moment when I write these 
lines, Austria-Hungary begins to yield under 
the pressure of her oppressed peoples. This 
result has not been brought about without 
trouble. A considerable number of Allied 
politicians, diplomats, and publicists have 
persisted since the beginning of the war in 
the idea that Austria-Hungary must be main- 
tained. They have thus worked for the King 



THE ALLIES OF GERMANY 215 

of Prussia, they have played the game of the 
Pangermanists, they have deserted the cause 
of democracy, they have incredibly prolonged 
the war by hindering the attack on Austria, 
the weakest point of the Central Empires, 
and have contributed to keep in an atrocious 
bondage admirable peoples like the Slavs and 
Latins of Austria-Hungary, who have been 
since the beginning of the struggle determined 
allies of the Entente, and for a long time 
worthy of unrestricted liberty. 



IV. 

The annexed map gives a comprehensive 
view of the causes which determined the soli- 
darity of the Central Powers. This map again 
shows that there are five centres of imperial- 
ism which rendered possible the formation of 
Pangermany. The chief centre is Berlin, and 
the four secondary centres, Vienna, Budapest, 
Sofia, and Constantinople, have allowed Ger- 
man militarism during the war to extend its 
methods and its detestable influence as far as 
the eastern confines of Turkey. These secon- 
dary centres of imperialism, having greatly as- 
sisted the propagation of the Pangerman cause, 
ought to be completely destroyed. 



216 



AN ENDURING VICTORY 






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CONCLUSIONS 217 



Conclusions. 



The main object of the war for the Entente 
beyond and above all others should consist of 
so complete a destruction of German milita- 
rism that all other military systems will have 
no further reason for existence, and a general 
disarmament will ensue. 

It is clear, therefore, that an incomplete vic- 
tory of the Allies will allow German mihtarism 
to continue even in a German republic, a thing 
which is quite possible, because the German 
socialists are for the most part nationalists, 
many are even at bottom Pangermanists, and 
they have the military spirit in the very blood 
of their race. In this case, the other nations 
will be obliged to keep up exhausting arma- 
ments. For all the terrible nightmare of mili- 
tarism would be prolonged under still more 
intolerable conditions than before, the war hav- 
ing laid unprecedentedly heavy financial bur- 
dens on the people. 

To make the world really safe for democracy 
and enter into a new era, it is therefore indis- 
pensable to bring about the total annihilation 
of the German military system. 

Let us, then, cherish no illusions; only the 
thorough and complete victory of the Allies 



218 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

can bring about this annihilation, as the effect 
of peace conditions carefully studied out to 
produce such a result. 

This final victory is now, however, relatively 
easy to reach if the Allies are unalterably de- 
termined to insist to the end on ten essential 
conditions. These conditions have this pe- 
culiarity that only one is applicable to the 
terms of peace to be imposed on the enemy; 
the others relate to the tactics and attitude to 
be held by the Allies, and this is particularly 
important in order to avoid mistakes, such as 
it is quite possible may be committed during 
the period of the armistice, mistakes which 
would suffice to deprive us of the conclusive 
success. 

First Condition, 

Written acceptances by the Germans and 
the foundation of the republic in Germany 
should not modify in any way the pro- 
gramme of guarantees and realizations of all 
kinds demanded by the Allies. 

This for the reason that — 
1st. An assassin is tried. His saying to the 
court, "I am a republican," does not diminish 



CONCLUSIONS 219 

his punishment in any way. The spirit of 
justice forbids it. 

2d. The German sociahsts have shown them- 
selves Pangermanists under the Kaiser; it is 
not reasonable to think that they have sud- 
denly abandoned their opinions. 

3d. The German people is not unhappy be- 
cause it has fought an unjust war; it is enraged 
for the reason that it is forced to see that the 
game will soon be lost. 

4th. The Boches are excessively double- 
dealing, and all their republican setting has for 
its first object to seek to prevent the occupa- 
tion of all Germany by the Allied armies. This 
occupation, however, must take place to com- 
pass a complete victory for the Entente, assure 
in Europe the territorial changes necessary to 
peace, and the reparation of the damage done, 
for this reparation is indispensable to save 
from complete ruin the countries invaded by 
the Boches. In this direction every generosity 
which is shown them will be in reality at the 
expense of the French, of the Belgians, etc., 
whom the Boches have robbed and pillaged. 

5th. Papers signed by the Germans have no 
value whatever. The treaty which guaranteed 
the neutrality of Belgium was as clear and pre- 
cise as possible, but was of no use. We already 



220 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

see the Boehe republicans manoeuvring to have 
the conditions of the armistice modified. 

6th. To beheve that the course of events 
may in a few months open the eyes of the Ger- 
man people and entirely change them is to 
betray complete ignorance of German history 
and psychology. The mentality of these peo- 
ple, their passion for wars of gain and for pil- 
lage, has remained the same ever since it was 
described by Tacitus. It does not, then, result 
exclusively from the Hohenzollern influence, it 
is century-long, which can only be gradually 
modified if the Germans, by well-advised mea- 
sures, are prevented during a long period from 
following their predatory instincts. 

Second Condition. 

The Allies ought to be thoroughly convinced 
that the German people is just as responsible 
for the war as the Kaiser himself. 

It is easy now that the Kaiser has fallen to 
see a tendency in the Allied countries to dis- 
tinguish between Kaiserism and the German 
people. This tendency is, however, shown 
only by those who have been wrong as to the 
origin of the war. They say: "The German 



CONCLUSIONS 2^1 

people have been deceived by the Hohenzol- 
lerns. They have renounced their sovereign. 
It is a proof of good faith; we may consider 
now the responsibihty of the people as greatly 
diminished." 

I protest with all my force against this ten- 
dency and these opinions, for they show on 
the part of their advocates a profound igno- 
rance of Germany and are very far from the 
truth. 

I have studied Germany since the year 1894 
and all my previsions as to the action of the 
German Government and the German people 
have been exactly fulfilled by the events, and I 
am therefore a qualified witness and have the 
right to be heard. I declare boldly that, if 
William II was the inventor and stage-man- 
ager of the Pangermanist plan, the Pangerman 
propaganda which was carried on from 1895 to 
1914 throughout the empire was welcomed en- 
thusiastically, almost unanimously, by the Ger- 
man people, for the Pangerman aims satisfied 
their mentality and their ancestral passion for 
spoils. 

During four years of war, the whole German 
population has upheld the Kaiser to the ex- 
tent of its power. The laborers have shown 
themselves quite as Pangermanist as the other 



222 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

social classes. To give a proof of this, at the 
end of September, 1918, the Christian Associa- 
tion of Metal Workers adopted the following 
resolution: "The Christian Metal Workers 
assembled at Duisburg . . . dwell particularly 
on the hope that the coal districts of Longwy- 
Briey, conquered by German arms, shall re- 
main in the possession of the Empire. . . ."* 

These lines show the attitude of mind of the 
Boche Pangermanist workman a few weeks be- 
fore the armistice, and if since then the Ger- 
man people have ceased to express themselves 
in the same way, it is because the Bulgarian 
disaster has taken place, opening to the Allies 
the road to Austria-Hungary, thus seizing cen- 
tral Europe, which is for Germany the key of 
the world. 

It is not at all, then, the remorse they feel 
for having waged a wicked war that now tor- 
ments the Germans and had put a stop to their 
annexationist demands, but solely their intense 
anxiety lest the Allies should act so as to bring 
about the permanent downfall of that Pan- 
german scheme which had just taken form, 
and in the accomplishment of which nearly 
the entire Boche nation was passionately in- 
terested during the last forty years. It is be- 

* See Le Temps, September 30, 1918. 



CONCLUSIONS 223 

sides undeniable that the Germans mobihzed 
from the outbreak of the war, have pillaged, 
burned, stolen, and committed unheard-of 
atrocities, as they were ordered to do. Since 
they thus docilely obeyed their leaders when 
they were commanded to commit crimes, they 
are themselves equally responsible. Never in 
the history of the world has any people act- 
ing after long reflection been more responsible 
for its acts than the German. 

Those of the Allies who see only the guilt of 
the Kaiser try by that means to shield his 
people from their punishment, a thousand 
times deserved; but though they may not in- 
tend it, this would be a tremendous injustice 
to the Allied populations. In fact, to divide 
the cause of the German people from that of 
their Kaiser would restrict the application of 
conditions of reparation to the Emperor and 
his immediate surroundings, while the people 
of Germany with equal responsibility provide 
the only basis broad enough to furnish to the 
Allied populations of Europe the indemnities 
which are strictly due and must be paid to 
save them from complete ruin. It is, there- 
fore, highly important to let the German na- 
tion bear the full weight of its responsibility; 
to relieve it of this would be in the first place 



£24 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

contrary to justice, and, secondly, in this way 
the AUied peoples would not obtain sufficient 
to make up the enormous losses they have 
suffered through German aggression, and the 
Germans, through the effect of the economic 
consequences of the war, would finally bear 
away the victory. 



Third Condition, 

Any negotiated peace should be resolutely 
and absolutely rejected, as it would make im- 
possible a complete victory for the Allies. 

During all the period of the armistice the 
Germans are going to struggle to arrive at a 
negotiated peace. If we concede that the 
republican attitude ought not to prevent the 
German people from suffering the consequences 
of the crimes that they have committed, we 
must likewise concede that one of the justifica- 
tions of the war lies in the fact that peace 
shall be dictated to the German people. More 
than that, a negotiated peace would be incon- 
sistent with the formula of unconditional sur- 
render which expresses so exactly the will of 
the practical unanimity of the Allied peoples. 



CONCLUSIONS 225 



Fourth Condition, 

To understand realistically the conditions 
of a programme for a lasting peace. 

An Allied peace programme, meant to bring 
about precisely their ideal, should not be theo- 
retic but exclusively practical. It is conse- 
quently useless for such a programme to lay 
down principles, already many times repeated, 
on which we have all agreed for a long time. 
But what is of capital importance is that this 
programme should contain only, without the 
omission of one essential point, the list of facts 
and practical changes, the realization of which 
on the soil of Europe will automatically assure 
respect for the principles for which the Entente 
is fighting. The peace programme of the 
Allies should be merely technical, something 
like a list of repairs which an expert mechanic 
draws up after a careful examination of a com- 
plicated machine which has suffered serious 
injuries. 

Europe is, in fact, a huge machine thrown 
out of gear, and our common sense tells us 
that it can only be put in order by mechanics 
who thoroughly understand it. 



226 AN ENDUEING VICTORY 

The best Parisian architects could not sensi- 
bly pretend to come and build a sky-scraper in 
the city of New York unless they had pre- 
viously carefully studied, with the help of 
American architects, the peculiarities and de- 
mands of this special form of construction. In 
the same way the most intelligent and well- 
meaning of the English, Americans, or French 
could not make a concrete programme for the 
reconstruction of Europe unless the plan had 
been long and carefully studied on the spot 
with the assistance of those who well under- 
stood the complications of European ma- 
chinery. 

Therefore, and this explains in a great mea- 
sure the mistakes as to the political situation 
made during the war, there are in the Entente 
countries extremely few men in politics who, 
before the war, devoted themselves seriously 
to the study of these grave foreign questions. 
The Allied leaders, in order to be sure of estab- 
lishing a just and permanent peace, would find 
it to their interest to call to their aid two 
groups of experts, for in this way all danger of 
technical mistakes would be avoided. 

1st. It would be necessary to pay the great- 
est attention to the advice of experts in foreign 
politics to be found among the Allies, whose 



CONCLUSIONS 227 

worth has been proved by the course of 
events. 

For example, in France Messrs. Louis Leger, 
Ernest Denis, Haumant, and Auguste Gau- 
vain; in England Messrs. Wickham Steed, 
Seton-Watson, and Sir Arthur Evans are al- 
most the only men who have seriously studied 
for a long time, prior to the war, the difficult 
problems of central Europe, the right solution 
of which will form the firmest foundations of 
peace. These men should be called in as tech- 
nical advisers of the Inter-Allied commissions 
charged to apply practically the peace pro- 
gramme. 

2d. There is a second group of experts whose 
help would be valuable — even indispensable; I 
mean the authorized representatives of the 
Poles, the Czechs, the Jugo-Slavs, the Rouma- 
nians, the Armenians, the Jews, etc., that is, of 
all the peoples who are to be liberated from 
the yoke of Germany and her allies. 

Representatives of these peoples — such men 
as Professor Masaryk, Dr. Kramarsh for the 
Czecho-Slovaks; Paderewsky, Roman Dmovsky 
for the Poles; Trumbich, Savic for the Jugo- 
Slavs; Take Jonesco for the Roumanians; 
Boghos Nubar Pacha for the Armenians, etc. 
— ought they not also to be added to the 



^28 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

peace commission as technical advisers to aid 
in the creation of a new Europe? This co- 
operation is absolutely necessary. 

We ought clearly to understand that the 
entire liberation of oppressed peoples is in 
reality the jfirst condition of a durable victory 
of the Allies, for, unless the freedom of these 
races is firmly established, we cannot build 
up in central Europe the strong barrier which 
will protect us against the aggressive spirit of 
the Teutons. 



Fifth Condition. 

To realize a concrete programme of peace 
conditions having for its object: 

1st. To prevent a further outbreak of the 
war. 

2d. To repair as far as possible the deep in- 
juries caused by German aggression. 

A detailed technical programme for peace 
cannot, in fact, be completely given until the 
Allied forces occupy central Europe and the 
Allied leaders have been able thus to secure at 
its very source the exact and indispensable in- 
formation which is certainly even now lacking. 
In any case, it is necessary that from now 



CONCLUSIONS 229 

on public opinion should see clearly, at least 
in its large outline, what should be the mini- 
mum concrete programme. I shall therefore 
attempt to make such a sketch; not that I feel 
myself safe from error, but I can say that for 
twenty-five years I have thought on the ques- 
tions which peace now brings before us, and 
that there is not one of them which I have not 
studied on the spot, unprejudicedly and care- 
fully consulting those best qualified to aid me 
in their comprehension. 

This concrete peace programme of the Allies 
ought, as a whole, to turn into a reality the 
excellent formula long ago thought out by Mr. 
Lloyd George — ^guarantees, reparations, retri- 
butions. 

This programme ought to be composed of 
very different elements brought together, and 
each part studied so that they all may harmo- 
niously combine their effects in such a way as 
to reach the desired result. 

These realizations fall, then, into five groups, 
each one indispensable, and consequently all 
of them together constitute the minimum 
terms to be imposed. 

1st. Territorial reorganizations in Europe. 

2d. Social reforms which will overthrow the 
foundations of German militarism. 



230 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

3d. The practical measures necessary to pre- 
vent the rearmament of Germany. 

4th. Measures of reparation for the injuries 
caused by the war. 

5th. The just restitutions dictated by the 
idea of modern law and the moral sense of the 
world. 

7. Territorial reorganization of Europe, 

Colonel Roosevelt and Senator Lodge have 
given a programme for the reconstruction of 
Europe which is, in my opinion, excellent, and 
to which I subscribe. This programme makes 
an application, perfectly well understood, of 
the high principle which unites the Allies: the 
right of self-determination of peoples — a princi- 
ple which has been so eloquently and often 
declared by President Wilson. 

On the whole, these changes in European 
territory ought to be undertaken so as to pro- 
duce a two-fold result. 

1st. To make it forever impossible to re- 
constitute Pangermany. 

2d. To assure the free development of the 
peoples oppressed by Germany and her allies. 

The Ottoman Empire, which forms an en- 
tirely arbitrary territory, ought to be abolished, 
for Turkish sovereignty ought only to exist in 



CONCLUSIONS 231 

really Turkish regions, that is, in Anatolia; all 
the other races, Armenians, Jews, and Arabs, 
should be made independent, as far as pos- 
sible. 

Constantinople being an essentially cosmo- 
politan city, where the Turks, contrary to 
what is the generally accepted idea, are only a 
minority (45 per cent), it should be inter- 
nationalized, together with the straits. Its 
cosmopolitan character and its geographical 
position, in touch with three continents — 
Europe, Asia, and Africa, through Egypt — 
make Constantinople the ideal place for the 
seat of the League of Nations when it shall be 
put into a practical shape. 

The complete withdrawal of central Europe 
from all Pangerman influence will best be ob- 
tained — 

First, by destroying all efforts of the Bulgars 
to attain the hegemony of the Balkans, by 
forcing them to give up the territory occupied 
by them in the course of the war. 

Secondly, as a basic and unavoidable condi- 
tion of their victory the Allies should over- 
throw the Empire of Austria, and the King- 
dom of Hungary, states which are simply 
founded on a frightful injustice. 

Thirdly, the Poles, Danes, and French who 



232 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

are now held in subjection by the Germans 
should be liberated. 

These three rearrangements would lead to 
the establishment of five new independent 
states, all absolutely essential to the new order 
in Europe: 

1st. Poland, including Dantzig, as an open- 
ing on the Baltic. 

2d. The state of the Czecho-Slovaks, or 
Bohemia, which must be understood to in- 
clude also her strategic mountain frontiers on 
the north and west. 

3d. A Magyar state democratized in the 
manner indicated below. 

4th. A Jugo-Slav state, embracing the Jugo- 
slav regions of Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and 
Montenegro. 

5th. Greater Roumania, comprising all the 
Roumanian districts in Bukovina, Transyl- 
vania, and Bessarabia. 

These five states, whose interest will lie in 
agreement among themselves and being made 
up of anti-German elements only — as will ap- 
pear later in the case of a democratic Magyar 
state— will form about 60 millions of inhabi- 
tants, between the Baltic and Greece. 

They will thus provide a first great barrier 
which will make a revival of Pangermanism 



CONCLUSIONS 233 

impossible. Behind this barrier, and with the 
help of the Alhes, can be organized federated 
Russia and the other states which Colonel 
Roosevelt and Senator Lodge mentioned in 
their programme. 

As for Germany, when she has set free about 
7 millions of Poles, Alsatians, Lorrainers, and 
Danes, she will still retain 61 millions of in- 
habitants. As Austria does not include more 
than about 7 millions of Germans, well grouped 
geographically, even if these 7 million Ger- 
mans wished to unite themselves with Ger- 
many, they would together not amount to 
more than 68 millions of inhabitants — that is, 
the same population as before the war, but 
with this difference that Germany would have 
lost all the strategic regions (Poland and 
Alsace-Lorraine) which facilitated her aggres- 
sions, would have had to pay each year for 
a very long period an annual instalment of 
indemnity which would have prevented her 
from arming herself again, and would find 
herself surrounded by people vitally interested 
to prevent any revival of the former military 
system. 

The annexed map does not pretend to show 
the solution of these problems in detail, but 
it gives a general view of the territorial modi- 



234 



AN ENDURING VICTORY 




CONCLUSIONS 235 

fications absolutely required. This map has a 
history. My studies had long ago convinced 
me that the only way to defeat Pangermanism 
was to form the five new states above described. 

At the end of 1916, 1 wished to publish this 
map in the Paris Illustration, but I found my- 
self opposed by the veto of the French censor, 
who was much alarmed by my map. Even at 
this time Allied diplomatists viewed the inde- 
pendence of Poland with little confidence, and 
one could not speak of the Jugo-Slavs for fear 
of vexing the Italians, who then had designs 
on Dalmatia. As for the Czecho-Slovaks, 
their importance was very vaguely recognized, 
and the hope of Allied diplomacy was to make 
a separate peace with Austria-Hungary. 

Finding my publication interdicted, I tried 
to get round the difficulty by saying to my 
censors : 

"After all, Europe, as I depict it, is only the 
result of the principle declared by President 
Wilson: 'I propose that every people shall be 
free to determine its own policy.' So let me 
print my map with this text." 

This proposal overcame the scruples of my 
critics and at last my map — which was greatly 
in advance of the conceptions of Allied diplo- 
mats — was allowed to appear in the Illustra- 



236 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

tion of February 24 th, 1917. Since then pub- 
lic opinion has been strongly influenced by 
events, and the Entente has become more con- 
vinced that this plan gave a very reasonable 
idea of what ought to be the state of Europe 
after the peace. 

I ought strongly to emphasize the fact that 
the claim apparently now being renewed by 
the Italians to establish themselves in the final 
ownership of a considerable part of the Dalma- 
tian coast would very seriously imperil that 
organization of central Europe which is indis- 
pensable to the peace of the world. In reality, 
the Jugo-Slav problem can only be perma- 
nently solved with the aid of mutual and sin- 
cere concessions which the Italians and Jugo- 
slavs should make to each other. Let the half 
of Istria, with Trieste and Pola, go to Italy, 
although the majority of the population of 
this territory is incontestably Slavic. Thus 
Italy will be assured of control over the Adri- 
atic to a permissible extent. But to the east 
of the boundary-line of Istria let the Jugo- 
slavs be assured of complete liberty. Fiume 
is a port indispensable not only to the Jugo- 
Slav state but to the democratized Magyar 
state and to Bohemia, the products of which 
would be able to freely reach the Adriatic 



CONCLUSIONS 237 

through a transport system which should be 
protected by guarantees. It is absolutely 
necessary that American public opinion shall 
understand at once how inadmissible are the 
Italian claims to Dalmatia and bring pressure 
to bear on the Jugo-Slavs and Italians to in- 
duce them to make as soon as possible the 
mutual concessions which both their own in- 
terest and that of peace in Europe really 
require. 

//. Social reforms will lead to the destruction 
of the aristocratic foundations of German mili- 
tarism, 

A. By the abolition of the feudal property- 
system in Hungary, 

In Hungary, as a matter of fact, the only 
real pro-Prussians imbued with imperialist 
ideas are the large landed proprietors among 
the Magyars, who enjoy feudal privileges, and 
in order to preserve them have a personal in- 
terest in making common cause with the Prus- 
sian Junkers. 

The great Magyar landowners have been for 
many years actual monopolists. Two thou- 
sand only among them hold more than 7 mil- 
lions of hectares, that is, more than a third of 
all the arable land in Hungary, and, saturated 



238 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

to the bone as they are with ideas of aristoc- 
racy and autocracy, they not only oppress the 
10 miUions of Slavs and Latins, who are un- 
willing Hungarian subjects, but also 8 millions 
of Magyars, industrial but chiefly agricultural 
laborers. 

If, then, the feudal privileges are abolished 
in Hungary, we shall at the same time destroy 
the only support of German militarism in 
south central Europe and make possible the 
liberation of 8 millions of Magyar proleta- 
rians. 

It is, therefore, highly necessary for the En- 
tente to include as soon as possible in its plans 
the expropriation of Magyar feudal landlords 
and the division of their estates for the benefit 
of the working classes organized into agricul- 
tural syndicates for purposes of cultivation. 

These social reforms and changes, which 
indeed are beginning to be made spontane- 
ously, so indispensable are they, will have 
great consequences; they will give political 
power in the Magyar districts of Hungary to 
the true Magyar people, who have up to now 
been entirely held down by the oppression of 
the feudal proprietors. The final result would 
be the creation of a democratic state, exclu- 
sively Magyar, of about 10 million inhabi- 



CONCLUSIONS 239 

tants, whose interest it would be, both poHtical 
and economic, to ally themselves with their 
neighbors, Poland, Bohemia, Roumania, and 
Jugo-Slavia, and also to form part of the great 
anti-German bulwark. 

B. Destruction of Prussian Junkers. 

These are at the very base of Prussian mili- 
tarism, and as an injurious caste they ought 
to be completely abolished. This could be 
accomplished legally by employing the follow- 
ing method: 

All the Junkers are at the same time large 
landed proprietors and officers in the German 
army; in the latter capacity each one of them 
has certainly been guilty during the war of 
criminal acts and orders, which by rights 
should be severely punished. After our vic- 
tory, the Allies should set up legal commissions 
before which these crimes could be tried, their 
authors indicted, and proper punishment de- 
creed. The landed property of the Junkers 
should be taken as indemnity and divided, 
according to the region, for the benefit of 
Prussian or Polish peasants. 

Ill, The practical steps to be taken in order 
to prevent the rearmament of Germany. 

Destruction in the whole German territory 



240 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

of machinery specially designed for the manu- 
facture of war material. (This, of course, 
would also apply to Austria-Hungary, Bulga- 
ria, and Turkey.) 

IV, Measures of reparation for injuries 
caused by the war. 

1st. Returning by Germany and her allies 
to the proper owners of all furniture, ma- 
chinery, and property of all kinds stolen from 
invaded countries. 

2d. Giving to the legitimate owners of Ger- 
man furniture, machinery, and other property, 
as compensation for stolen goods which cannot 
be returned in kind. 

3d. The determination and security of the 
annuities that Germany should furnish to the 
states attacked by her, as compensation for 
injuries of all sorts and expenses caused by the 
war. 

The Germans have stripped the invaded 
countries of everything, and the war has been 
so much more costly to the Allies than to Ger- 
many that if the economic differences result- 
ing from this state of things were to last the 
military success of the Allies would mean 
nothing, especially for France, for in a few 
years after the conclusion of peace Germany 



CONCLUSIONS 241 

would appear victorious, simply through the 
economic consequences of the war. 

This overwhelming money question is of 
such extraordinary importance that if we wish 
to avoid terrible financial catastrophes sure 
to follow the conclusion of a peace we may 
consider satisfactory, but too hastily con- 
cluded, America's great business men ought to 
insist that money questions should be dealt 
with thoroughly by the Allies, studied without 
haste, and completely solved. 

The attempt to see clearly in the interests 
of the future is all the more necessary because 
the extreme importance of the financial aspect 
of the situation is not as well understood as it 
ought to be by many of those who nevertheless 
are deeply interested. 

This is the case for reasons which follow, 
and will be understood, taking France as an 
example. 

Before the war 6 milliards only of bank bills 
were in circulation in France, while up to the 
present moment 30 milliards have been issued; 
also many people have made enormous profits 
in munitions of war, while workmen's wages 
have considerably increased. The eflPect of 
this apparently satisfactory situation is that 
many Frenchmen do not realize to what an 



242 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

extraordinary extent the war has brought ruin 
to France. 

The 30 miUiards of paper which now circu- 
late so easily produce an illusion of wealth, 
but this wealth is partly artificial, and partly 
conditional. In fact, the truth is that these 
30 milliards of French bank bills are secured by 
the consequences of an absolute victory which 
will oblige Germany to repair progressively the 
immense losses of all kinds caused to France; 
this is also equally true of the other countries 
which have suffered under German aggression. 

Germany is perfectly able to pay, certainly 
not all at once, but by annual amounts. If 
the credit of the German Empire fails under 
the final defeat, the material riches of Ger- 
many, which are considerable, will remain. 

When the Allies are in a condition to study 
German revenues carefully and at leisure on 
the spot, when the possession of a fair share 
of these revenues is secured, by guarantees as 
solid and durable as may be necessary, then 
the German people can certainly pay annually 
a sum of at least 10 milliards of marks. Let 
us suppose that the share of each of the Allied 
states who are creditors of Germany is 2 mil- 
liards a year. These 2 milliards being guar- 
anteed during a very long period, thanks to 



CONCLUSIONS 243 

modern financial combinations, will be suflS- 
cient to allow each Allied state to raise inter- 
nal loans, relatively small, and therefore easy 
to float, which will enable it to draw in its 
budget, enormously increased by the war, sav- 
ing its citizens from the taxes which would 
crush them to death, but which it would be 
impossible to avoid if the Germans were not 
made to fear, as far as possible, the burden of 
injuries which they have caused. 

The annual sums to be paid by the Germans 
should not be too heavy; in order to make 
these payments absolutely certain, therefore, 
these annuities will be spread over a long 
period, probably at least fifty years, but, as the 
German people had prepared their attacks for 
more than forty years, what could be more 
natural and just than that they should have 
to bear the consequences for a nearly equal 
space of time ? 

As a further consideration, the reparations 
to be made by means of annual payments 
spread over a long period will be a powerful 
guarantee of peace, for it is certain that Ger- 
many could never keep up the immense ma- 
terial of war required by modern armies as 
long as she will be forced to pay the amount 
of her reparations. 



244 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

V. The retributions required by justice. 
The frightful massacres and tortures of the 
civil population which have been ordered dur- 
ing the war by the Turks, the Bulgars, the 
Austrians, the Magyars, and the Germans 
would bring disgrace on the Entente if left 
unpunished. But the mode of dealing out 
justice in these cases can only be settled after 
investigations on the spot by the Allies, which 
will make plain facts which are now only par- 
tially known. 

Sixth Condition. 

To understand that the presence of Allied 
soldiers in Germany and Austria-Hungary is 
absolutely indispensable to a thorough and 
permanent victory. 

Let us face the truth. Without the pres- 
ence of Allied troops in the above countries 
can it be seriously believed — 

1st. That if the Germans are free to pursue 
their intrigues in central Europe, Poland, 
Bohemia, the democratized Magyar state, the 
Jugo-Slavia, and Greater Roumania could 
organize themselves on a solid basis, so as to 
assure a long peace ? 



CONCLUSIONS 245 

2d. That the aboHtion of feudal landed 
property in Hungary could be accomplished 
as thoroughly as is necessary to deprive mili- 
tarism of all support in these regions? 

3d. That all the Prussian Junkers will be 
tried, and their land divided as it certainly 
should he? 

4th. That the enormous amount of personal 
property stolen by the Germans from Allied 
citizens, and now scattered all over Germany 
can be actually restored to the owners .^^ 

5th. That throughout the Central Empires 
machinery specially intended for the manu- 
facture of war material would be destroyed ? 

6th. That a long and difficult economic in- 
vestigation will be undertaken by the Allies 
in every part of Germany, to decide on the 
amount to be paid every year as reparation 
during a very long period, for damage caused 
by her aggression ? 

7th. That courts of justice will be instituted 
as is most necessary, to try German officers 
and soldiers who have been guilty of particu- 
larly odious crimes during the war? 

8th. That the annuities due from Germany 
will be regularly paid? 

No fair-minded person can deny that the 
only really satisfactory way that can be imag- 



^46 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

ined to secure the enforcement of these eight 
points, each one an essential part of victory, 
would consist in the presence of Allied soldiers 
wherever they might be needed in Germany 
and Austria-Hungary. 

All disposable Allied troops ought to be 
advanced at once from Belgrade and Fiume 
toward the north through Bohemia. Their 
presence on the soil of what has been Austria- 
Hungary will give a solid foundation to the 
new states carved from the fragments of the 
Hapsburg monarchy, and will serve in future 
as a rampart against Germanism. 

Finally, these Allied troops will be in the 
right place to make at the proper time the 
entrance into Berlin; a satisfaction, also, which 
ought not to be refused to those splendid sol- 
diers who have fought for four years with ex- 
traordinary tenacity, and through the depths of 
suffering have gained freedom for the world. 

Seventh Condition, 

To admit that to enable the Germans to 
repair the damage they have caused, they 
should not be placed under a general boycott. 

Conditions of peace should be logical and 
coherent, and as it is of supreme importance 



CONCLUSIONS £47 

that the Germans should repair the injuries 
they have caused, as far as is humanly possi- 
ble, they must have the means of payment. 

It is plain to the meanest comprehension 
that if we prevented the Germans from work- 
ing and making money, they could never pay 
their debts, and this would certainly be the 
result obtained if we followed the numerous 
plans published in the Allied press, and put 
them under a general boycott. In my opinion 
this conception should be abandoned, as di- 
rectly contrary to the interests of the victims 
of German aggression. The Germans should be 
allowed to work and engage in commerce, but 
owing to the extraordinary circumstances aris- 
ing out of this long war, it will be necessary 
that German commerce go on under the control 
of inter-Allied commissions. These commis- 
sions, however, must avoid vexatious measures, 
for the Boche debtor cannot earn the money 
to pay what he owes if he is constantly worried. 

Eighth Condition, 

To consider the League of Nations from a 
realistic and not a Utopian standpoint. 

The Utopian conditions which obtained be- 
fore the war in the states now in alliance. 



248 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

greatly facilitated the preparations for the 
German aggression; and we ought carefully to 
avoid a repetition of such fatal blunders. It 
is, therefore, urgently necessary to form an 
idea of this much-talked-of League of Nations, 
which will conform to the interests of peace, 
our views on the subject being still vague. 

According to the way you understand it, the 
League of Nations is either a beautiful concep- 
tion to be applied progressively, or a dangerous 
absurdity; and the distinction between these 
two aspects of the same idea is easy to see. 

It is not only right but necessary to resolve 
that after the war the actual alliance between 
the nations, which now unites three-quarters 
of the people on earth, should become a per- 
manent league, with an essential object, to 
prevent any future war. Logically this League 
of Nations itself as soon as peace is concluded 
should undertake the following: 

1st. The distribution of troops composed of 
detachments from Allied forces in disputed 
regions of Europe, and also the occupation of 
German territory wherever necessary. 

2d. To form and decide on the functions of 
the inter-Allied commissions sent to study on 
the spot the resources of Germany, in order 
to fix the amount of the indemnity due to the 



CONCLUSIONS 249 

victims of her aggressions, and to insure its 
payment. 

The League of Nations should also act in 
the larger interests of peace, as a kind of tri- 
bunal which would itself see to the execution 
of its decisions, and, thus understood, the 
league could not fail to receive the support of 
practically the whole world. 

There are some incorrigible lunatics who 
propose, contrary to common sense, and to 
the most elementary ideas of justice, to admit 
Germany to the League of Nations as soon as 
peace is concluded. Would it not be absurd 
to say to the German people, ''We will treat 
you as brothers," when they will be forced to 
pay an indemnity to the Allies during a long 
term of years ? 

There are millions of Allied soldiers, broken- 
hearted women who mourn husbands, fathers, 
and fiances, Slavs and Latins from central 
Europe, the Balkans, and Russia, Greeks, and 
Armenians, who have all suffered in their ten- 
derest affections to the extreme limits of 
human agony through the action of German 
people. Can we seriously ask of all these to 
say to the Germans whose hands are still 
stained with the blood of their crimes: "Peo- 
ple of Germany, you are our brothers, come 



250 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

and join with us in the League of Nations"? 
If a son was bereaved by a crime, could one 
say to the orphan: ''Treat the murderer of 
your father as a brother" ? None but a mad- 
man could have such a conception of the 
League of Nations. At the present time dis- 
cussions as to the league are theoretic; the 
public generally does not understand clearly 
what is intended, but when it is known that 
the idea is from this time forth to treat the 
Boche assassins as equals and brothers, it will 
raise a furious storm of indignation. The up- 
shot will be to discredit the plan for a League 
of Nations, even in its practical form, of which 
the effect would be lasting as well as attrac- 
tive and desirable. 

Ninth Condition, 

To understand that the pacifists are as 
dangerous to the establishment of a durable 
peace as the Pangermanists. 

For a quarter of a century the world has 
suffered from two great diseases — ^Pangerman- 
ism and pacifism. Both are follies, the second 
at least as dangerous as the first. At bottom 
the Pangerman plan was an insane dream, 
which should never have been allowed to be 



CONCLUSIONS 251 

realized. Nothing, in fact, was easier during 
twenty years than for the countries threatened 
by this monstrous plan to render impossible 
any attempt at its execution. That this did 
not happen was due to a coincidence, which 
history must explain. During this period the 
different countries of the Entente were ruled 
by pacifists, who taught the mass of the peo- 
ple that peace was assured, without consider- 
ing the striking signification of the increasing 
armaments of Germany and the great spread 
of Pangermanist doctrines. This is the un- 
answerable reason why the pacifists of the 
Entente are themselves primarily responsible 
for the war, and they also are the cause of its 
extreme duration, with all the misery resulting 
therefrom. 

It is a fact that, instead of wishing to prose- 
cute the war with determination, the pacifists 
who were able to influence the course of the 
Entente, were constantly seeking for peace, 
where a strong offensive was needed, which 
would long ago have put a stop to the carnage 
by an Allied victory. 

The pacifist influence is largely responsible 
for the fact that during four years, instead of 
pushing an offensive campaign against Bul- 
garia and Austria-Hungary, which — as is now 



252 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

strikingly proved — were the extreme weak 
points of the Central Empires, we persistently 
tried to negotiate with these countries separate 
peace treaties which were impossible of attain- 
ment. The result was that our whole military 
force, from the beginning of the war, has been 
concentrated on the western front, exactly the 
line where the Germans were strongest. As a 
consequence, the abortive peace negotiations 
with Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary, which 
took place in the first years of the war, have 
cost millions of men to the Allies. 

If these things have happened before and 
during the war, it is because the pacifist is an 
ideologist, which implies an extraordinary igno- 
rance of the realities, things he does not even 
wish to understand. 

The chief misfortune is that the public has 
not yet been enlightened as to the great dan- 
ger that pacifism represents for the peace of 
the world, and thus naturally public opinion 
extends an undeserved consideration toward 
many pacifists. As an instance of this, Sir 
Edward Grey is almost unanimously held to 
be an idealist who made every imaginable 
effort before 1914 to avert war. The truth, 
however, is exactly the contrary, not that Sir 
Edward Grey lacked good-will, but because he 



CONCLUSIONS 253 

did not understand the situation; he is, no 
doubt, an excellent trout-fisher, but he is an 
Englishman with very incomplete ideas on 
European questions, in spite of the fact that 
he was at the head of the Foreign Office for a 
long time. 

In 1912-13, as we learn by Prince Lich- 
nowsky's memoirs. Sir Edward ceded all Meso- 
potamia to Germany as a sphere of influence, 
something which he had no sort of right to do, 
and, though he did not suspect it, this action 
made Germany wish to realize at once the rest 
of the Pangerman plan in the Balkans and 
central Europe — a plan which was entirely un- 
known to Sir Edward Grey. It is true that, 
if you give up 20 per cent voluntarily to a 
German, he will at once try to take the rest 
away from you, but, in his quality of inveter- 
ate pacifist, Sir Edward entirely ignored Ger- 
man psychology. 

For this very reason when, before declaring 
war, Germany asked if England would take 
part in the struggle. Sir Edward Grey made 
no answer, but, if he had understood the Ger- 
mans, he would have replied, "Yes," and this 
word, resolutely uttered at that moment, might 
have moved Germany to give up her aggres- 
sion. 



254 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

Let me add something still more extraordi- 
nary which is unknown to the general public. 
In September, 1915, the Bulgars were prepar- 
ing to invade Serbia, when the Serbian repre- 
sentatives in London said to Sir Edward Grey: 
"We shall attack Bulgaria, before her concen- 
tration is complete, as the only way to pre- 
vent an invasion of our country." To which 
Sir Edward replied, forbidding absolutely an 
attack on the Bulgars, for he thought that 
they were mobilizing to join the Entente. 

This colossal mistake on the part of Sir 
Edward Grey allowed Serbia to be invaded, 
and enabled Germany to effect that junction 
with the east which so greatly lengthened the 
war. It seems evident that since his reply led 
to such consequences, a very heavy responsi- 
bility for the millions of deaths that resulted 
rests upon Sir Edward Grey. When the reck- 
oning is made after the war it is highly possi- 
ble that the pacifists will be found to have 
massacred more men than even the Panger- 
mans. 

To sum up, a pacifist is an ideologist, en- 
tirely indifferent to facts, which he refuses to 
understand — an attitude which gives a crimi- 
nal character to his ignorance. A pacifist is 
always talking about peace, but he is as inca- 



CONCLUSIONS ^55 

pable of maintaining peace as he is of making 
war with resolution and competence, so that 
it may be short, and therefore less sanguinary. 

A pacifist, then, is entirely unable to grasp 
the conditions necessary to a lasting peace 
with the Boches, who generally deceive him 
like a child. 

It is in the highest degree important, there- 
fore, to prevent the pacifists — as dangerous 
ideologists — ^from exerting their influence on 
the conclusion of peace. They would cer- 
tainly allow causes of war to remain, which 
those who have real knowledge of European 
conditions would undoubtedly suppress. 

Tenth Condition, 

Not to allow ourselves to be deceived as to 
the character of the Bolshevist danger. 

Those, unfortunately so few, who are really 
acquainted with the German character, believe 
that Bolshevism in Germany is not of the 
same character as in Russia. 

In fact, Bolshevism, which served the Ger- 
man Great General Staff as a means for de- 
stroying Russia, is at present a weapon very 
well managed by the Boche Social Democrats, 



^5Q AN ENDURING VICTORY 

which, if care is not taken, will permit them to 
destroy the solidarity of the Entente countries 
during the armistice, and so finally save Ger- 
many from real defeat under cover of the 
general confusion. 

To appreciate the whole extent of this dan- 
ger one has only to note the results gained 
from the Entente by the Bolshevist blackmail 
from the 10th of November, 1918, the date of 
the signature of the armistice, to the 15th of 
November only. 

In this very short space of time the Boches 
said, on the 12th of November: "We need 
definitive peace as soon as possible. If not, 
all Germany will be the prey of Bolshevism." 
And the Allies visibly appeared to hurry for- 
ward the peace conference. 

Then, on the 14th of November, the Boches, 
men and women, put in their word: "The 
terms of the armistice must be softened and 
the German people must be fed, for, unless this 
is done, Bolshevism," etc., etc. And though 
this last demand has not been accepted at the 
moment when I write these lines, it is at least 
being taken into consideration. But we must 
choose. America clearly cannot feed every- 
body in Europe. It is certain that the winter 
of 1918-19 will be a terrible one. Therefore, 



CONCLUSIONS 257 

if the Germans are to be fed, we condemn to 
death miUions of Slavs and Latins of central 
Europe who are Allies of the Entente, who 
have strongly contributed to its victory, who 
are necessary to form a powerful barrier 
against any renewed offensive of Pangerman- 
ism, and who for four years have been sys- 
tematically reduced to famine by these very 
Boches. Has there ever been anything like 
this in history ? 

The best course for the Allies to pursue to 
secure themselves against the Bolshevist dan- 
ger, which is only too real, is to act not accord- 
ing to the advice of the Boches, but according 
to our own good sense. Let us send the Allied 
soldiers into Austria-Hungary to organize order 
there, to secure the feeding first of all of those 
peoples who have been our faithful allies, and 
then, if there is anything left, the Boches 
themselves. Let us try this way and we shall 
see that the Bolshevist peril will disappear in 
regions where the Allies are able to act directly. 

* * 

Such are the different conditions which the 
AUies must reaUze if they are really seeking 
the end of mihtarism to the fullest extent 
possible. 



258 AN ENDURING VICTORY 

As the German propaganda, aided by all 
those in the Entente nations who are working 
to save Germany by leading us into incomplete 
and hastily made decisions, threatens during 
the period of the armistice to seriously com- 
promise the victory of the Allies, it is particu- 
larly necessary, in order to neutralize this dan- 
gerous effort, that American public opinion 
shall declare itself clearly, without delay and 
with the greatest emphasis, for the following 
measures : 

1. The presence of Allied soldiers in central 
Europe during the reorganization. 

2. The rejection of every form of generosity 
in material matters which can only be shown 
to the Germans at the expense of the Allies. 

3. Reparation by the German people, strictly 
held responsible for all the damage which they 
have caused — and this to the greatest extent 
possible. 

4. A suflSciently exhaustive examination by 
the Peace Conference of the immense prob- 
lems which it has to solve. 

The carrying out of this programme of 
action only requires from public opinion about 
six months of effort, clear vision, and persis- 
tence; but it is such that it will avoid the 
very great dangers of the armistice period and 



CONCLUSIONS 259 

will secure to the Allies real, complete, and 
permanent victory. In my opinion, this exer- 
tion of vigilance is absolutely necessary in 
order that history may say with certainty: 
America saved Europe. 



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